The best "per capita" footballing nation

don't know whether we've done this before, but would Brazil, Italy or Germany be at the top?

1) Trinidad & Tobago
2) Iceland
3) Portugal
4) Sweden
5) Romania

toon h wrote:don't know whether we've done this before, but would Brazil, Italy or Germany be at the top?

What criteria are you using to measure success? If it is World Cup wins, then Uruguay must be a pretty good shout.

Denmark

Croatia & Serbia should be in with a shout as well.

@axe,
so Romania, with 20 odd M inhabitants is significantly better than Holland?

Not sure it's the best measure anyway. If you had a country of, say, 20m where 50% of population plays football, compared to one of 100m where only 5% plays football - who would be the most impressive winner?

EMP wrote:

toon h wrote:don't know whether we've done this before, but would Brazil, Italy or Germany be at the top?

What criteria are you using to measure success? If it is World Cup wins, then Uruguay must be a pretty good shout.

I am using the Schroedinger equation to establish this. The good thing about that equation is that it is a function of time. What is too bad about it is that it has a fundamental uncertainty built in.

debaser wrote:Not sure it's the best measure anyway. If you had a country of, say, 20m where 50% of population plays football, compared to one of 100m where only 5% plays football - who would be the most impressive winner?

It's certainly not the best measure. But a measure nonetheless.

But per capita means just that.

Not sure who WOULD be the most impressive winner in your example, though. The 5% who play football in the larger country would probably be on average more motivated and athletic than the 50% in the 20m which would include all manner of elderly, women and children.

De Guzman wrote:

@axe,
so Romania, with 20 odd M inhabitants is significantly better than Holland?

I thought they had a *lot* less inhabitants.....

???



11,000,000

Nah. Great result for them. Still I rate Serbia (7M) & Craotia (4.5M) much higher.

If you look at club results, Im gonna go for Holland! No bias! But compare our club prices to other average countries like France and Germany!

Croatia with 4.5m inhabitants?!?!

Its gotta be them surely/

Uruguay has 3.5m. Winners

debaser wrote:Uruguay has 3.5m. Winners

Yeh... but Uruguay is Spanish speaking and the spanish are notoriously lazy. They probably did a half arsed job in the census and the popn is more than double that.

Even if it is 10m, 2 World Cup wins >>>> Croatia's WC semi.

We won five of our six major titles without the Ossis. So before the Wall fell, Germany roughly had as many inhabitants as France and Italy. That was a pretty darn good per capita record until 1990, before it went downhill.

debaser wrote:Even if it is 10m, 2 World Cup wins >>>> Croatia's WC semi.

Add 14 Copa Americas and I think we have our winner

URUGUAY

Uruguay

Croatia it is

brazil has 190m now, but in 1970 the popularion was 70m.

in 1958, when we won the first wc, the population was maybe around 50m.

mongrel hawk wrote:brazil has 190m now, but in 1970 the popularion was 70m.

in 1958, when we won the first wc, the population was maybe around 50m.

Doesn't compare to Uruguay per capita and I'll bet the population of Uruguay was considerably smaller in 1930 and 1950 than it is now.

back in those days no one was participating, so those cups are bogus anyway

Axeslammer wrote:back in those days no one was participating, so those cups are bogus anyway

1930 was invitation and Italy refused to go so Uruguay boycotted in 1934, but you seem to have forgotten that prior to the World Cup the Olympics was the unofficial World Cup and who won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928 - that's right, Uruguay.

1950 was inclusive, first time England turned up and lost to USA in Bela Horizonte, so Uruguay's titles are legitimate.

Nah, we weren't allowed to send the profs : so null and void.

I'm so sorry for the Uru-gays

Axeslammer wrote:Nah, we weren't allowed to send the profs : so null and void.

I'm so sorry for the Uru-gays

As a football nation:
Uruguay>>>>>>>Holland

EMP wrote:

mongrel hawk wrote:brazil has 190m now, but in 1970 the popularion was 70m.

in 1958, when we won the first wc, the population was maybe around 50m.

Doesn't compare to Uruguay per capita and I'll bet the population of Uruguay was considerably smaller in 1930 and 1950 than it is now.

sure, uruguay is number 1 per capita. but they had a bigger population before. maybe the only country in SA whose population decreased.

Super De La Red wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:Nah, we weren't allowed to send the profs : so null and void.

I'm so sorry for the Uru-gays

As a football nation:
Uruguay>>>>>>>Holland

yes, up to 1970.

since then it is definitely the other way around, even per capita.