The absurdity of comparison between South America and Europe in football (soccer)

Comparison in the most popular sport in the world appears not wrong overall. If you are a deeply passionate football lover, then football has no border.

But even then, that doesn't make sense for me to not think about one of the most absurd comparisons. Yeah, the most popular comparison has to be taken, seriously - South America vs Europe, or... else?

That's what I'm talking about.

Why is it so absurd?

I would rather address the reason for this comparison to be taken.

Map of South America.
Map of Europe.

Already who learnt geography will be very clear about South America and Europe be like. South America is a bit special because it is a subcontinent within a continent: it is part of the Americas, the New World named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian merchant who discovered the continent. Henceforth the development.

This was also what started the complicated situation. When it comes to football, South America has been, rather, treated like a separate continent, rather than just a subcontinent - to compare with a full-fledged continent like Europe. This is because, in the Americas, two separate football federations exist: the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football) and CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation). The latter belongs to South America as the name indicated in Spanish (Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol) and Portuguese (Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) - even though talks about uniting two federations began after the 2016 Copa América Centenario. Unlike Europe unified under a single entity (UEFA).

Yet, Europe being unified under UEFA is also another reason not to be ignored. Because of one thing: the FIFA World Cup champions in Europe are mostly located in... Western Europe, with only two nations that do not belong to this rank: Spain and Italy (in Southern Europe). However, Spain and Italy are too Western Europe-oriented, making geographical locations blurred. And there is one another problem: systematic discrimination against countries out of this football rank of Western Europe, typically against teams from Eastern and Central Europe, meaning that it becomes impossible for teams from outside Western Europe to progress. As for 2018, there is no team from outside Western/Southwestern Europe to have crowned world champions, despite three nations (Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Croatia) managed to reach the final.

This situation draws some level of confusion. What is the meaning to compare Europe with South America if most of the European world champions are based exclusively in Western Europe? Just like how South American countries being the only force from the Americas to have won the World Cup?

I'd rather make a better comparison, in this case, Western Europe would find itself more suitable to battle with South America. Overall, these regions produce eight world champions, three from South America, five from Western Europe. Meanwhile, countries from CONCACAF are more familiar to the rest of Europe, for certain, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Ukraine are more similar to Honduras, Costa Rica, Haiti and Panama. There are exceptions, of course: not all South American countries are good, like the cases of Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela - which is more familiar to Canada and Haiti (CONCACAF members) and Balkan national teams like Bosnia, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, Albania and Bulgaria; while the same opposite that not all countries from outside Western Europe are bad: selections like Croatia, Sweden, Denmark and Poland are more to compare with Chile, Peru, Colombia, United States and Mexico. And there are also Guyana and Suriname, two South American countries affiliated with CONCACAF - hence only similar to nations like Estonia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Georgia, Armenia and Lithuania. Countries in the Caribbean, also have some national teams more familiar to Central and Eastern Europe.

Overall, it is silly to draw a comparison between teams from South America to the whole of Europe; at the same time, Western Europe can't carry the entire result for Europe due to this imbalance. So it should be referred to as the football rivalry between South America and Western Europe, rather than the European-South American draw. You can't compare a subcontinent with a giant continent.

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