The 2022 World Cup has made Messi and Argentina. You know, Argentina has not been ranked No. 1 in the world for a long time, and after the Qatar World Cup, Argentina has been ranked No. 1 until now. In fact, in recent years, Argentina's trend has been very stable, not only winning the Copa America, but also the European and American Super Cup, they also beat Italy 3:0. And as stable as Argentina is France. To be fair, on paper, France is the best team in the world, and the thought of Mbappe, Camavinga, Tchouameni and these players are all under 26 years old makes me feel terrifying, which means that France's competitiveness will not decline in the next five years.
Where there is stability, there is instability. One of the strong teams is very strange, in the period before the 2022 World Cup, they had a very good momentum, and it can be said that they were at the peak of recent years, but with the 2022 World Cup as an inflection point, their form plummeted and quickly slipped to the bottom, and in recent times, they have even been at the lowest point, with miserable results and serious injuries to key players.
I'm talking about Brazil.
Remember what happened before the World Cup in Qatar? Brazil are considered the number one favourites to win the tournament, even ahead of France and Argentina. What is particularly important is that Brazil was ranked No. 1 in the world at that time, you know, how long has it been since Brazil reached this position? From the 90s of the last century to the beginning of the new century, Brazil was the absolute king of world football, occupying the No. 1 position in the world for several years; but later, with the retirement of superstars such as Da Luo, Brazil ushered in a long-term superstar dwarf, and for so many years, only Neymar was barely considered a supergiant. So, we are familiar with Brazil's exit in the quarter-finals at the World Cup, and we are also familiar with the fact that the world number one ranking is not the norm for Brazil.
Therefore, when Brazil sat on the top of the world again, many people exclaimed that the familiar champion was back. Brazil's achievement in such a ranking is largely due to the amazing performance of the South American World Qualifiers, they are unbeaten in 18 games, including the second leg against Argentina, which was called off due to epidemic prevention reasons and finally cancelled, but the other teams have no opinion at all, because whether Brazil will play this game or not will have no impact on the prospects of other teams. As you can imagine, the advantages are huge.
In the Qatar World Cup, Brazil brought 9 major forwards, giving people a sense of déjà vu. But unfortunately, Brazil still did not end the fate of the quarterfinals.
And strangely, the mediocre results of the Qatar World Cup seem to have had a lasting negative impact on Brazil, and the Brazilian players seem to have not come out for a long time. This is reflected in the fact that after the 2022 World Cup, Brazil played a series of matches extremely poorly, including friendlies, where they were defeated by Morocco and Senegal, which is absolutely abnormal for Brazil. The setbacks of the 2022 World Cup, like knocking the souls of the Brazilian players out, began to show ups and downs. In the World Preliminaries, Brazil actually lost three times in a row, and such a record can be on par with the belly of the fish.
Thanks to the expansion of the World Cup, South America has 6.5 places, which also gives Brazil a double layer of insurance. But the question is, do teams like Brazil need to use such low-level benefits? Shouldn't they qualify for the first place? At the moment, Brazil is in 6th place, and if this result continues until the end according to the previous places, Brazil will lose even the record for the World Cup perfect attendance award.
Before the World Cup, Brazil was ranked first in the world, and currently, Brazil is only fifth. The contrast between before and after is too great. But it's no wonder to others, in 2023, Brazil will play really poorly in all competitions, and the decline in the ranking is certain.
For old Brazilian fans, from the second half of 2022 to the present, it is like riding a roller coaster, just experiencing the virtual thrill of Brazil's strong recovery, and now being beaten back to its original shape, this feeling is really terrible. And Brazil's top brand Neymar, not only did not play much, but was seriously injured in the world preliminaries, which also cast a shadow on Brazil's future prospects. Perhaps, now is the time to calm down, with the current situation, don't talk about any return, and make sure to enter the 2026 World Cup.