A few days ago, I suggested that Europe wasn't doing very well in the World Cup (here). That was after the first round, when every South American team advanced, but less than half of the European teams did. Now that every South American team has been eliminated and there are two European teams in the final, I'll admit I was being premature. It was quite astonishing how both Brazil and Argentina crashed out, leaving no one but lowly Uruguay left to keep South American hopes alive. (I call Uruguay lowly because they had to play a home-and-away series with Costa Rica to get into the World Cup.) And while they did better than expected, perhaps, against Holland, they duly crashed out, too. On the other hand, it was quite astonishing to see Germany crash out, too.
Anyway, the big question for me before this World Cup was whether European teams did well in Europe and poorly outside of Europe because of the "home-field" advantage or because of the time-zone advantage, and after the first round, it looked like it was mere home-field advantage, but now it's looking like time zones play a part after all.
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