Football: European Qualifiers Vs South American Qualifiers
Since many years I'm a soccer fanatic, I really enjoy watching my favorite teams playing every week in different tournaments, I like a lot the Football clubs, I'm a big fan of "Caracas F.C." a team from my country Venezuela and of "Real Madrid C.F." I think one of the most famous teams in all the world. But, above these two teams is the national football selection of my country, It is very exciting to watch a game of my team, is the best. My country plays in one of the most difficult confederations in the world, I'm talking about CONMEBOL the South American confederation, there are many good teams as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, among others every team in this confederation represents a good rival and of course a very nice game, that it's why is so difficult to reach a ticket to qualify to the World Cup if you play the qualifiers in South America.
Because of the difficulty of every game It is very exciting when your selection is going to play here in South American qualifiers and of course in the continental tournament "La Copa America", but I have realized a different perception about the qualifiers in the European continent, even when there is a great football passion in Europa, We can observe this fact watching the European leagues as "La Liga", "Barclays Premier League" and "La Bundesliga" where We can see a lot of greats games and unique fanatics, there is something that looks rare to me, sometimes it looks like they think that the qualifiers are boring and they prefer to watch the clubs and enjoy of their national selections only in more important tournaments like The Euro Cup and of course the World Cup.
It's rare for me to watch that someone doesn't enjoy when his national team is going to play in a qualifiers for the World Cup, but I have noticed that this fact is mostly present in the countries that has an historically powerful football team as It is the case of Germany, England, Spain, France or Italy, but why? As the European continent is really big, the qualifiers must be split in different groups. To qualify to the World Cup, We can observe nine groups with six teams each and the most powerful teams usually are in different groups, a very different distribution if We compare It with the South American group which is only one conformed by ten teams. But, Why there is to many different about the emotion of the people when the qualifier's moment arrived?
Of course, Is not every European person who think like this, but there is an important number of people who would prefer a league game than a qualifier selection game. I think is because of the competitive of the selections in every continent. Even when We can see many European World Cup champions as there are Germany, Spain, England, France and Italy as I said before this teams usually are in different groups, I mean they are not going to play each other in all the qualifiers. This means that the powerful teams are going to play against with others teams that are not to many powerful when We talk about football tradition, as there is the case of Andorra, San Marino, Kazajistan, among others countries that doesn't have Football as a first option when We talk about sports.
When I think about this fact I realized why to many European people prefer to watch the games of their own leagues than the qualifiers, it is more exciting to watch a game of Real Madrid Vs Barcelona, Bayern Munchen Vs Borrussia Dortmund or Manchester United Vs Chelsea than watch games like Spain Vs Lituania, Germany Vs San Marino or another games like these, I think that is the reason why s not the same emotion, maybe for the powerful teams is just another game that is supposed to be won and in the other hand We have the South American qualifiers which are more difficult and there are more exciting, if there s true that here are also the powerful and always favorite teams, you never know what is going to happen in a South American qualifier game, mostly of the times the qualifiers has to wait to the last minute to say who is going to be in the World Cup.
Of course, this perception of boring matches is mostly for the favorite teams, but also We have the others teams who are fighting for a place in the World Cup, here We can see the other face of the coin, because We have the little teams who wants to defeat the giants teams and are going to do their best to do It, is in this teams where We can find and illusion and and emotion that could be compare with the one that We have in South America, but I think that you can compare the two confederations if We talk about difficulty, but who knows? The football is a changing sport, maybe in some years the little teams are going to grow up and are going to make the European qualifiers as exciting as the South American.
And for you? Which one is the best?
