My point on the Olympics was not a deviation from the central topic at hand; we're talking about runners-up, and the silver medal is literally awarded to the runner up. I was merely using the Olympics as an analogue in order to demonstrate that the runner up position is indicative of sporting accomplishment and is the best metric to use in order to separate two teams with an equal number of championship wins. The Olympics even go one step further as they recognize and celebrate the third place position as well. Additionally, keep in mind that Football is also contested at the Olympics, so the Football runner-ups get silver medals. The gold, silver and bronze medals are prestigious awards, but from the graph above, you can see that the runner up team in the 2022 World Cup were literally awarded $30 million!! I don't know about you, but to me $30 million seems like a pretty prestigious award too. Also under your system, how would you differentiate the Netherlands from Canada? Neither has ever won the world cup. Is their football achievement the same in your eyes? Is Canada actually better because they are undefeated in World Cup championship games (0-0), while the Netherlands has lost multiple times in the finals (0-3)? Personal opinions are subjective and as a result are of little use in a quantitative ranking of the most successful teams. At the end of the day, facts don't care about your feelings. That's why winning percentage is not used to rank World Cup teams (or in the Olympics), but second places finishes are utilized when a tie-breaker is required.
Sigh... I really don't know how much i could have been clearer than this: The debate was all on personal opinions, I wanted to express the perceived achievements from a fan pov. You dismiss them? fine, but i'm done here, i'm not going to change my mind on the fact that to lose a greater number of finals means also a greater number of delusions. Canada is a mediocre team with low potential, i don't expect anything from them... let's say they live up to the expectations. Netherlands is a good team with a history of wasted potential and catastrophic failures. IN a match i fear more Netherlands because they are stronger then Canada, but in the end, while i don't expect great results from Canada (I'm not disappointed), Netherlands collected ZERO victories in its history. All the victories of that nation came from the fabled Ajax team, so are not an achievement of the national team. Netherland (and Benfica) is the precise example of the difference between a good team and a Great team.
Fair enough, but the world sees it my way. Lists of winners are ranked according to the criteria that I laid out. It doesn't matter if a close loss in the final game hurts more from a fan's point-of-view, it still represents a greater sporting achievement than being eliminated earlier in the competition. Winning percentage < Overall achievement.
Okay, I get that this is the Random Thread of Random Randomness, but all of this discussion about scoring and the Olympics is making it less random. Any chance we could get a "Discussions" thread to move that to?