In all perfect honesty, I don't think either of these teams are that great. Thanks to their injuries, the France of 2022 don't look as good as the France of 2018. They don't look as good as Germany 2014 or Spain 2010 either. They've done just enough in the big games without ever dazzling. This Argentina team is nowhere close to the ones I grew up watching either.
The larger story of this World Cup has been that the big nations haven't really turned up. Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Brazil have all underperformed, all of them losing games they should have won. There's been a paucity of top tier matches between big sides. England - France was the only I've watched where the level was on par with top-level European club football. It's been a great tournament for the underdogs, but not a great tournament for anyone wanting to see the best football.
But in some ways, that's the way international football has been going for a while. As the transfer market has become more globalised and the rich European clubs ever more wealthy, club teams have been able to assemble the very best players from around the globe who play together every single week. The best football has been in the UEFA Champions League for years now, not international tournaments. The World Cup is essential viewing not so much because it's the best football you can find. A lot of the games are grindingly tense, low-scoring, decided by penalties. But that's what makes it compulsive entertainment: because the stakes are so incredibly high, and even elite sportsmen crack under that kind of pressure.
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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]
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