World Cup: Is Brasil's Squad Better Than Best Club Team?

While watching a re-play of yesterday's Brasil/Croatia World Cup match -- won on a tremendously placed blast by a man named Kaka, a name the Telemundo announcer kept repeating throughout the game like Beavis might have the word bunghole -- I wondered who the best team in the world is.

OK, so it sounds like a stupid question. That's what they're playing the World Cup to decide. Duh. But what I mean is this: Is Brasil better than the best club team out there, which is generally regarded to be Barcelona? (That team, not coincidentally, features Brasil's best player, Ronaldinho, who is also the best player in the world.)

If you're not a soccer fan and this just isn't making any sense, think back to the original Olympic basketball Dream Team, which turned out to be the only actual Dream Team, too. Jordan, Bird, and Magic were on the same team, and often played on the court together for large stretches of the game. That's about as good as it gets.

But, at the same time -- and what most people forget -- the rest of the team wasn't exactly a collection of the greatest players ever. Christian Laettner? Chris Mullin? Clyde Drexler? C'mon. Could that team beat Bird's or Russell's Celtics, or Magic's Lakers, or the Fo-fo-fo Sixers (which featured the fleeting, forgotten perfection of Andrew Toney)? Great as the Dream Team was, I sincerely doubt that.

I wanted to know if the same thing was true in soccer. Or is the best national squad in the world better than the best collection of international players?

Since I know a hell of a lot less about soccer (though I've been watching for 25 years) than I do basketball, I wrote to someone who knows everything, Bob Kellett from the great World Cup Blog.

My question:

Which team (club or nation) is considered the best in the world? For example, is there a consensus about how Barcelona (probably the best club team right now) might fare in a match against Brasil (probably the best national team)?

Bob's reply:

It is tough to really say which club team is the best in the world but at the moment it probably is Barcelona. They won the Champions League and have such a talented collection of players. Chelsea also has a ridiculous number of world class players so they would have to be considered one of the best as well...

Personally I think Brazil would beat any of those teams but it might not be easy. The club teams play together more often and are used to each other's style more than the country teams which don't train that often together. That said, only the best players make Brazil so on talent alone they would probably beat Barcelona, Chelsea, etc.

So there we have it. Thanks to Bob, and to those readers who've made it this far.