JAKARTA - The 2022 World Cup is just a matter of days, from across the Atlantic Ocean, two world football rulers, Argentina and Brazil, looking at Qatar with high optimism for appearing impressive lately.
Together with Argentina's new edition, superstar Lionel Messi, who turned 35 when the 2022 World Cup was held. He enjoyed an adventure with the best Argentine squad in his superstar career.
Quoting Antara, Lionel Scaloni's team has been in 35 unbeaten matches since 2019 which is a record for Argentina. This team also made Messi finally get his first trophy with the national team after winning Copa America last year.
Brazil has played an impressive journey that lost only once in the last 29 matches when they lost to Argentina in the 2021 Copa America final.
However, their second power is still being questioned because most of what they are up against are inferior teams in friendly matches, in addition to teams from fellow South America in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
The doubt was dashed after Argentina declared Italy 3-0 in the Finalisima on June 1 this year which brought together the European Cup champions with the Copa America champions.
However, the Nations League and various matches on five continents have already changed the ranking of 32 participating teams for the 2022 World Cup.
A total of 16 teams experienced a decline in ranking including Argentina, Uruguay and France, which fell 1 place, while Portugal and Cameroon fell five places. Belgium, Senegal, and Tunisia even fell four places.
The other 12 teams experienced an increase in rankings, including Brazil and England, which rose one place, while Croatia's 2018 World Cup finalists jumped five places which was also experienced by Serbia and Ecuador. Australia is the team with the highest rise, six places.
This could just be a number in the rankings. The recent poor performance of a number of countries could also be a coincidence.
However, recent statistics cannot eliminate the possibility that the global football landscape will change in the 2022 World Cup.
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