Most Important 3rd Place Matches

[jason voorhees]

1998 and.... ?

[Satchmo Distel]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

Related question: I was trying to remember how many of these matches were shown live in the UK in the days when we only had two channels showing the World Cup. I seem to recall seeing the 1978 and 1982 games only as highlights, even though both contained some good stuff (such as Nelinho's goal).

EDIT: The NTL site indicates it was shown live in 1974 and 1978 but only as highlights in 1982 and 1986; Italia 90 was shown live because England was in it.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/ITV/Internationals.html

[Diable Rouge]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

2002? South Korea surely regarded it as a defining coda to their hosting, and it was Turkey's greatest ever tournament result.

[Kurt Bafokeng]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

Same goes for Germany in 2006. Finishing the tournament on a high note. Without it something would have been missing.

[G-Man]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

Host nations involved in these do have an obligation of sorts to their fans to go out on a positive note. Arguable Italy 1990, because they lost on penalties, had an excuse not to. But that is always a one-way street; the other side might or might not care about winning.

Though tonight Holland would look like chumps if they lost to the side that was beaten 7-1 by Germany without trying.

[Furtho]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

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[Jupp04]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

How shitty must the teams be that previously lost against those clowns in yellow?

[N est à?]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

They're a different prospect with Neymar to be fair. But yeah, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, maybe eveN Croatia could all have taken them.

[Satchmo Distel]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

But that's being wise after the event. Those four teams had to play Brazil believing they were up against a top side. Even the Germans played it cautious for the first 10 minutes until they realized there was a clear path to goal.

[Sam]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

Plus Latin American sides who aren't Argentina or Uruguay have always tended to show Brazil too much respect (Argentina and Uruguay, of course, have sometimes shown them too little respect). I don't think it's surprising that Chile's actually relatively lively showing came under an Argentine boss (and whilst Colombia of course have an Argentine boss too, for what it's worth I thought Brazil did a pretty good job of eating Colombia's attack alive during the first half of the quarter-final; that was as well as Brazil played in this tournament, I think).

[Wouter D]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

How did Germany ever concede a goal against these clowns? Bunch of amateurs...

[danielmak]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

satchmo76 wrote: Related question: I was trying to remember how many of these matches were shown live in the UK in the days when we only had two channels showing the World Cup. I seem to recall seeing the 1978 and 1982 games only as highlights, even though both contained some good stuff (such as Nelinho's goal).

EDIT: The NTL site indicates it was shown live in 1974 and 1978 but only as highlights in 1982 and 1986; Italia 90 was shown live because England was in it.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/ITV/Internationals.html

Although many of these games weren't broadcast in the UK, ITV or BBC did the full match before editing down rather than having a commentator comment on highlights only. Every third place match has since surfaced on video with UK English commentary from 1966 through the present.

[Jah Womble]

Most Important 3rd Place Matches

The 1994 play-off (Sweden vs Bulgaria) was live on Eurosport, but not terrestrial, IIRC. Since 1998, ITV has taken all the third-place matches live.

The 1978 game I remember well, and definitely saw live on ITV, but not 1974 - however, this was likely down to the fact that I had to be at the school fete.