The Inevitable Football Topic

[Paullus Scipio]

see Paul that you are trying to equate the population numbers with success. Unfortunately this argument if this is your attempt, no longer is valid. Italy has close to 60 million people and a huge number of their teams are not composed of Italians rather players from other countries. Using your theory Italy should be great, and Germany, and France, and the US...........

It really has to do with how seriously a sport is taken in a country and how much money is invested to make it a success not the population size. The Czech Republic is a small country and their team did well until recently.

I was not equating population alone with success....but it is a major factor in almost all sports. Having said that there are other major factors as you say - such as interest levels in that sport, how much money is thrown at it and so on.

Certainly it is no surprise that probably the best level of football is played in the European Leagues, where money attracts the best players from the World.....and the biggest audiences/consumers also tally with the biggest populations/markets ! :wink:

Meanwhile, the 'diving' has reached epic proportions....in one game I even saw two players go for the ball, make contact, and both launched dives hock:
- seemingly each trying to get their 'dive' in first !! :roll: Ridiculous!

Can you tell me why rolling around on the ground, and clutching the face with two hands is seemingly a compulsory part of the 'act', even if the only contact has been below the knee ? :?