Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 10. (Read 65447 times)

We should always bring examples of legends like these, of course, they are fucking comparisons to show that in each era there have been many stars who have determined the rhythm and history of football, the only black mark on Maradona was drugs, otherwise he would have been the best in history, but I won't say that he is the best in history to a son of mine who, when I investigate him, tells me that his greatest influence was drugs, it sounds harsh but it is the truth, it was not like that with Pele, but that was in those times.

For many, Messi is the best, but for me he is not. He had a lot of help and still has it from FIFA. I am proud of him because he is a South American player, but even so, I prefer CR7, who trains harder every day and strengthens his talent in that way, competing with the youngest players, giving his stature and even being better than them in many aspects. For me, he is an example, of course, that is my very personal opinion.

It does matter.
The strength of opponents is always taken into the account (whether it's a world cup match or a friendly match outside of international match calendar windows).
Take note that playing against Argentina gives smaller W_e than playing against Iran and that makes the P bigger.

The 2026 World Cup has created a good opportunity for new teams. Teams that didn't come very close to qualifying for the main stage in every World Cup tournament have a chance to play in the main stage in this World Cup. However, there are still some doubts about whether they can qualify for the main stage of the World Cup. Australia is trying although there is no guarantee yet that Australia will qualify for the main stage of the World Cup. However, some other countries including Iran, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan have a good chance of qualifying for the main stage of the 2026 World Cup. We will see more competition in the 2026 World Cup than what we saw in the 2022 World Cup and undoubtedly the 2026 World Cup will be remembered for a long time.

Ok this is a super detailed outline of how the weighting works, but what I didn't find while quickly going over it is whether it makes a difference when in a friendly match

"played outside of International Match Calendar windows" as it says in the paper, does it matter whether a team plays against Iran or Argentina? From what I understand, this is structured purely based on the timing of the match taking place. It seems to be irrelevant whether a team plays against Iran or Argentina if the match is scheduled "outside of International Match Calendar windows".

When it is group stage at the World Cup, I think Saudi Arabia played against Argentina, Mexico and Poland, but if they had won all three games, the points per game would have been the same no matter whether Argentina is higher ranked than Poland.

Which I can't completely grasp because these countries have so many people to choose from, but all countries have their specialties. It is the same in basketball when the USA is the superpower so to say while in football they are not very good. However, who would have thought that the most popular sport in Indonesia is football. But popularity is not the most decisive aspect that gets you strong national teams. It is the full dedication to promote and foster talents, but then they probably lack the scouting abilities as well. In China, football is not so much emphasis put on and I think their physical condition gives them an edge in rather other sports. It is quite physical and if you look at the English guys, Italians, Germans, Spanish not so much but they are very strong technically and have an outstanding approach to promote the sport with whatever it needs.

The points obtained for every win (or draw) depends on importance of the match and the relative strength of the opponents. It's not that teams win (or lose) same points for every win (or loss).

The more important the match is, the more effective it is. For example, a match which is played in the world cup has much more effect than a friendly match.
The more strong the opponent is, the more points the team would get for a win and the less points the team would lose for a loss.

Click here, for more information on how FIFA world ranking works and how the points are calculated.

We can't expect to see the same good performances from Indonesia at all. Indonesia is not a bad team but don't forget that they even lost the game against China while China did not have a good performance since they wasted working with their new coach.
However regardless of the result, Indonesia can get into the next games, we can't expect to see miracles from this team and I don't think if they can ever have the chance to be in the 2026 World Cup at all.

Guys when you look at the following screenshot from the FIFA World Ranking



then you can see that Iran is 19th and then countries like Denmark, South Korea and also Austria are behind them. How do these coefficients work? Do they get the same number of points when a game takes place Iran vs. Iraq like when Argentina plays against Brazil? Or do placements in the World Cup count more?

It looks a bit weird when Iran is ahead of Denmark and South Korea because I am sure they would lose most of the times if they played many games against each other. I have noticed that a while ago and I never liked this ranking because everyone who knows some things about football, would also know that Iran should be ranked lower if compared to some of the European teams. They wouldn't beat Austria and yet since Austria has much tougher opponents, they rank lower as a consequence.

Well, the Asian Zone World Cup qualifying round in Group C was indeed the fiercest so far. because actually in Group C there are even 3 national teams that have quite high rankings, namely Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Bahrain is ranked 78th if I remember correctly and China is ranked 91st. And actually it is quite amazing to see the Indonesian National Team in Group C able to compete with other big teams. Because we know the Indonesian national team has the lowest FIFA ranking compared to the others there. Namely, Indonesia is ranked 125th. Quite a big difference, isn't it?

And the aura of pressure or atmosphere from the Indonesian supporters is always extraordinary. I salute those who are always present to support the Indonesian national team when they play at GBK or even abroad. I think Bahrain must mentally prepare itself. But they shouldn't worry about security or anything because in Indonesia the people are friendly and they will be surprised by how nice Indonesian people are in the real world.

I am still hopeful that Australia will be able to qualify. At the moment, Japan is far ahead of the rest with 16 points. Of the 6 matches played so far, they have won 5 and the remaining match was a draw (against Australia). Now coming to the remaining teams, Australia has 7 points, followed by 6 each for Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Indonesia is at 3rd place thanks to higher number of goals scored. Now this is a surprise. No one actually expected Indonesia to perform better than Saudi Arabia.

In Group C everything is still difficult to predict. Only Japan seems to have confirmed that it will qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile, the rest, such as Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia and China, all continue to change places. And there is still time until the next match is held. So all these teams have plenty of time to make better preparations.

I am very curious about the Indonesia vs Bahrain meeting again which will be held at the Glora Bung Karno stadium which is famous for its different atmosphere from other stadiums. In fact, one of the Saudi Arabian players who is also a player from the Al-Hilal club, namely Ali Albulayhi, who is usually a player who is known to be quite fierce and brave, turned out to be different when he played against Indonesia at GBK. 

There are some players who change their nationality because they are over twenty-five years old and do not get the opportunity to play in a higher level national team. But there are also players who change their nationality because they get a better team. As we can see, there are many "African-descent" players who play in European teams such as France, England, Spain or Germany. All choose to play in a national team for various reasons. And in fact, Indonesia has players with the youngest average age in this third round of qualification. This shows that most players who choose Indonesia are those who are young and still have the opportunity to play in other countries. Even as far as I remember there were players who had played in the Dutch U-15 national team or other age groups. FIFA rules prohibit players who have earned caps in the senior national team from changing nationality but do not apply if they are still playing in the age group. This shows that there is a sense of nationalism in every player who chooses to play for Indonesia.

I am not trying to defend Indonesia. But some players who have been naturalized will become non-European players and will be subject to high taxes for non-European players and will be part of the restrictions on non-European players in each league. This shows that they faced some problems when choosing to move to non-European citizens but they chose the risk to be able to become part of the Indonesian national team.

It is a short period of time though and you can see that national teams like that from Saudi Arabia can't evolve within no time despite investing billions into infrastructure, player development and stars from abroad. Japan was on a good way, but they had some lows in the meantime which I didn't fully understand. The one way you can take a shortcut is when you buy a whole team like Qatar once did in handball, but as far as I know there are rules in place that prevent that from happening in football. By the way, I think that rule is good because it would suck if countries that have a lot of resource could just buy an entire team of superstars from all over the world. That wouldn't have much to do with eye level competition and passion and so on.

But I think you are right that these three countries could improve at least to some degree if they are willing to invest a certain amount of money. High quality education and support in sports costs money, that is a matter of fact.

Though I still think that teams like France, Spain, maybe England, Argentina, Germany will come out on top. However, I don't know whether the USA team for instance might be carried by public support so much that they are able to surprise us all. Could be, could be not. Same for Mexico, very obscure to me because you don't see too many Mexican players being internationally recognized these days and I don't know how much energy and ambition it could set free if they have their people behind them. But it would probably need a miracle for them to beat the top teams.

The next matches will be only in spring, I think if the teams have a desire, they will be well prepared during the preparation of national teams outside the club championships, but I think not every team has a chance to reach the next stage, Bahrain does not look a strong team and is likely to remain at the bottom of the table, but in general the whole group is like this with the exception of Japan, so anything can happen.

The top two ranked teams of each group will qualify for the world cup directly. Third and fourth placed teams will go to fourth round.
In the fourth round, there will be two groups of three teams. The winners will qualify for the world cup. The runners-up will play against each other and the winner will go to inter-confederation play-offs.

Players will prefer to play for the Dutch national team than representing Indonesia. The Oranje Holland is highly rated and will offer better conditions for players. One can easily get a good club just because you are part of the Dutch national team. Players usually dump these highly rated teams for lower-placed national teams because they have sensed that they might never have the opportunity to play in such teams. Another reason might also be they don't have age on their side so they need to look for available teams that can make them play international games before they retire. Most of these players who switch allegiance in my country are above twenty-five.

But these surprises don't only supply to the Asian Football Confederatio, it is the same for CONMEBOL. 18 points for Brazil after 12 games is ridiculous, but since the continent is rather weak these days, Brazil benefits from it. Some years ago Uruguay was so strong and teams like Colombia were hard to beat, but now that they are not as good, Brazil will probably get away with it, play an embarrassing qualification and yet make it to the World Cup in the USA + Mexico.

It is not a lack of talent, but a lack of dedication and this was proven when Morocco went so far at the last World Cup. They beat Belgium and tied the game against Croatia, then beat Portugal and Spain in the knock out rounds. But could Morocco do that because they had the better players or because they have shown unprecedented dedication?

I think we will get to see more often where underdog nations because of their will power will beat the favorites in these tournaments. Teams like France and Spain take it easy because they think they can play a training session and yet win, but no. Frankly, it is a lot of fun to watch the underdogs giving the favorites a hard time.

You are right, and the results of the current 6 matches will make the remaining matches very interesting and difficult to predict. The favorite team can get results beyond predictions. We may be able to choose our favorite team, but this group has a tight competition.
All teams still have a chance for 2nd position. It depends on their readiness next year to determine whether they will qualify for the World Cup directly or continue to the next round to continue the competition for tickets.

I think these countries, which from a professional football point of view can be considered small countries, have now noticed how important sports are to represent themselves on the global stages. Indonesia has some great potential as they have 10 times the population of Saudi Arabia, but it is part of the truth that this was a win with a good amount of luck having been in their favor. Saudi Arabia had full control over the game, but Indonesia had some good moments and they were the more efficient team, hence the win was not undeserved of course. But it wasn't like Indonesia played on a whole different level compared to other games.

But I think countries all over the world will take more money and try to establish themselves as more important players on the football stage. In regards to making the qualification a dream come true, Indonesia has taken a big step now and Saudi Arabia is under pressure. Is it the first two from group A, B and C to qualify and then the best two 3rd ranked? Trying to figure this out, but haven't really paid attention to the AFC thus far. I see, 3rd and 4th from every group build a fourth round and then the best two from there make it to the World Cup., but let me know if I am wrong.

I think Indonesia would have to beat Australia in Australia, which I think is unlikely to happen. But they could still go through fourth round and achieve the qualification.

In my opinion it's simple why they want to defend the Indonesian national team because they know that Indonesia is a very good market and the opportunity to become a major main player to be able to show their abilities, while in the Netherlands they have quite tight competition to become the main player at the starter.
Both supporters of Indonesia will fully support the development of players who defend the country, such as going to increase followers in the media of the media players who can get fame easily in this country and that will be a long -term advantage for players who compete in defending the country of Indonesia to get a World Cup ticket.