OT - is today the biggest mismatch in world soccer history?

Submitted by superstringer on

Spain v. Tahiti, at 3pm ET today.  Spain has won its last 3 major competitions (two Euro's and one WC), which no other team has ever done.  Core of this team had a 35-game unbeaten streak 4 years ago (the USA, oddly, snapped that), and currently has something like a 27-game unbeaten streak.

Meanwhile, Tahiti fields a total of ONE professional player, the rest are amateurs.  Tahiti's total population is like 150,000 or something.

It's being called the greatest mismatch in the history of major international football competitions.  The burning question is -- does Spain score at will (Tahiti's own coach expects over 20 goals for Spain), or, does Spain just score enough (5 to 8) then back off and play catch.

In England and Germany, the culture is to respect your opponent by playing your hardest -- meaning, keep scoring; because if you back off, you have disrespected him.  In South America and the US, we have the opposite approach.

What say you?  I think the final will be 10-0.  And 7-0 at halftime.

EDIT:  Clairvoyant me.  Final was, indeed, 10-0.

alum96

June 20th, 2013 at 12:55 PM ^

On this topic when I saw the pool this weekend  during the Spain Uruguay game, I researched the "Oceania" group and saw 7 countries similar to Tahiti ......and New Zealand.

So my broader questions: (a) why is Oceania one of the top groups to qualify?  Wouldnt a broader group that included Middle East or something along with Oceania be more appropriate?   It just seems silly for someone from Oceania to even be there...  (b) why was Australia not in that Oceania group of 8? 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

June 20th, 2013 at 1:24 PM ^

(a) - the Confederations Cup gives each of the continental confederations an equal berth because that's just how the rules are.  This tournament is the WC host, the previous WC champion, and the six confederation champions.  If one of the six champions is also one of the two other teams, then the runner-up goes, hence, Italy, since Spain qualified as WC champions.  The Middle East isn't a confederation - Asia and Oceania are.

(b) - think of Australia like Butler: they wanted to move up to better competition, so they petitioned to join the Asian confederation instead.  Up til Tahiti won the OFC championship last year (thanks partly to someone else upsetting New Zealand in the knockout round) nobody but the Aussies or Kiwis had ever won it.  And New Zealand breezed through the OFC portion of WC qualification as well.

Needs

June 20th, 2013 at 2:09 PM ^

Just to add to this, Australia sought to transfer not only because of better competition in Asia, but because it actually increased their chances of qualifying for the World Cup. Because the Oceana federation is so bad, it only gets 1/2 slot in the World Cup, requiring its champion to play off against a team from another federation. This year, New Zealand will play the 4th place finisher in the CONCACAF hexagonal (the US's confederation). 

When Australia was in Oceana, they'd regularly have to play the 5th place team from South America, which led to them missing out on the WC to Argentina one year and Uruguay another. (They also had a heartbreaking loss to Iran for the 1998 cup in another qualification scheme). In Asia, They're more secure (much like the US in Concacaf) as they're generally at worst the 3rd best team in a region that gets 4 1/2 bids.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

June 21st, 2013 at 12:23 AM ^

Pretty much any time New Zealand doesn't make it, it will be considered a gigantic upset.  There are more than 7 tiny little island countries, they just don't all get to participate in the OFC championship (there are qualifiers for all the continental championships just like for the WC) but yeah, they're all kind of indistinguishably bad.

Trebor

June 20th, 2013 at 3:51 PM ^

Didn't look too bad for Tahiti for a while there, 1 goal in the first 30 minutes. Then Spain decided to play and scored 3 times in 9 minutes to take a 4-0 lead into the half. Only about 70% possession so far, too.