Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 163. (Read 67707 times)

But it doesn't have any consequences as the CONMEBOL area has either 6 or 7 starters for the World Cup 2026 out of 10 qualification participants. It may have consequences of course when the groups are drawn for the final round, but I guess Brazil doesn't care too much whether they finish the qualification phase as second or third. They will be a favorite at any World Cup they participate in and if they have to beat strong teams during the group stage in the final round at the World Cup, they know that they would have to beat strong teams at some point in time anyway, so the potential harm is probably not that big.

It is still too early in the qualifications, any ranking right now is almost entirely random.

Having said that, the 2 - 0 win of Uruguay against Brazil is important. Brazil qualified without losing a single game in the previous world cup. Now they just lost in the beginning against Uruguay.

This tells me that Uruguay will be one of the favorites. I mean, they are very good anyway, and have won the world cup previously so no surprises there.

The South American qualifications are always fun to watch, every team is good.

Argentina are currently in first place in the qualifiers, which is not surprising after they became world champions last season. But what is surprising is that the second place is not Brazil but Uruguay. Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela have seven points each in the standings and it is a serious competition between the teams. Colombia by the way has six points, which may cause problems for the leaders in the future. Probably we are waiting for an interesting qualification.

This is why I love football, if you are watching Manchester City versus Real Madrid then yeah you are going to get the best teams and that's fun too, I do enjoy it a lot and I would love to watch it this year as well, all those great big clubs or even nations like France and brazil and England and Argentina etc they are all great.

However, when it comes to teams like Indonesia or any other team like that, it is really fun to see because it shows you why we played it as a kid. Those teams are there to play, not there to just win, if they can win that would be lovely but they are there to give 100% of their power and that makes it so much more fun, it is better than watching 10+ million dollar salary players without a doubt.

The list isn't complete without osinmhen and Bellingham, these are also young talents who have in recent times dominated the European football scene and the world at large, they have shown brilliance and competency in their various team where they find themselves, both in their various domestic leagues and other leagues they have been consistent and remain as champions.

Comparing these young talents with the likes of Ronaldo and Messi would be too early and erroneous at some point because these set of players are in a different era in the football history as compared to that of Messi and Ronaldo  and they still have a long time to showcase a lot and scale heights to the peak of their career so comparing a new star to people who are already done and about retiring wouldn't make enough sense.

These boys haven't participated in as many game as these other old players have participated and they have not gained enough recognition as the others have so the yardstick for comparison would just be too far apart.

Both Kylian Mbappé and Erling Håland are in their early 20s. At this point, I don't think that it is the right thing to do when we compare them with legends such as Ronaldo and Messi. And we don't know whether they will dominate the football scene, similar to what Messi and Ronaldo did for almost two decades. What if they end up like Mario Balotelli? He was once regarded as the next Ronaldo. The had a few poor seasons with Liverpool in 2014-16, and finally ended up with Adana Demirspor. I really don't want either Mbappé or Håland to end up like him.

Lionel Messi though is still performing well whenever he's on the pitch but one can clearly see the the Argentine superstar isn't performing like he was doing in his prime and that's to show that age is somehow showing effects on the veteran forward footballer.
Messi will be 39 years of age by 2026 and I don't think he'll want to play in the World Cup at 39 knowing fully well that he's not gonna be active in the tournament. I don't see a 2026 FIFA World Cup with Lionel Messi as one of the participants.

Yes in this round Brunei Darussalam is not a difficult opponent to beat, as evidenced in the 2 legs between Indonesia vs Brunei Darussalam which ended 12-0. For Indonesia itself, the opportunity to qualify for the World Cup finals is still very far away, they will meet with strong countries, in the next round they will meet with 3 countries and 2 countries from Southeast Asia, they meet quite often, the Philippines and Vietnam while 1 other country is Iraq. Perhaps in this group Iraq is the strongest country, but even so Vietnam is also not to be underestimated, as well as the Philippines. But to be able to qualify from this group phase, the opportunity is still open for Indonesia.

Regarding Messi and this player in the next World Cup. I know Messi can even get older and he obviously can't have a good performance when he is going to play for Argentina in the 2026 World Cup. Also, I think Messi is even thinking about getting retired even before that year before Deco, from Barcelona said they were ready to plan a special tribute for this player when he gets retired.


https://en.as.com/soccer/barcelona-already-planning-a-special-tribute-for-messi-n/

If Lionel Messi participates in the World Cup for Argentina in 2026, then he will not have this current pace. Because he has to lose out on the age gap, Messi will be around 39 years old in 2026 because he doesn't seem to have the right running speed at that time. Although he is currently the best in terms of experience, the age gap will be the biggest obstacle. Although he has plenty of pace at present, we would also like to see him in 2026 so that he can bring his experience to the World Cup once again.

Even though there is only small chance for Indonesia to become one of the top AFC teams to have a ticket to the 2026 World Cup at least seeing how the Indonesian players fight in every match is extraordinary.
We all know that there are still many strong teams that Indonesia has to overcome but with strong determination and optimal play can make Indonesian football fans proud.
Of the several teams that will be Indonesia competitors it seems that Vietnam will be the team that makes it the most difficult for Indonesia because the Vietnamese national team always uses various methods to beat their enemies.
I remember when Indonesia played Vietnam and there were many yellow cards from Vietnam who tried to provoke the Indonesian players by doing lots of tackles or elbows.

A bit surprising with Asian football but this is what happens.

You are right that Brunei Darussalam is not a tough opponent for Indonesia, especially now that there are quite good things in the development of the Indonesian national team, they are no longer a team that easily loses to any team and are quite happy to see this good development, only when talking about opportunities to qualifying for the World Cup is still quite difficult to achieve, I don't want to denigrate Indonesia, but in Asia itself they still have to prove that they are a strong team, in fact, it would be better for Indonesia not to qualify because it is very possible that they will be the weakest team in the tournament. Later it would be better to focus continue to build Indonesian football better and start by performing better in the Asian Cup and only after that targeting the World Cup and which takes quite a long time with the right development.

@Slow death at his age it made sense because he wanted to play in a league where he could get regular match fitness and keep himself ready for international games but I didn’t think that he would actually be keen to play in the 2026 World Cup. Furthermore the era of Messi and Ronaldo is over in context of European football and now it’s time for Halland and Mbappe because these two will be dominating football for a very long time now.

Considering many aspects, Lionel Messi is likely to play in the 2026 World Cup, while considering some aspects, it seems that he will stay with the team only until the team qualifies for the 2026 World Cup. It will not be surprising if he is seen playing for Argentina in the 2026 World Cup and it will not be surprising if he does not play. What Lionel Messi didn't get in his long career, he got at the end of his career.  Lionel Messi has only one Copa America win against Brazil in Brazil and that is his first Copa America trophy win. On the other hand, he never achieved a World Cup win in his long career which he achieved at the end of his career 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Argentina will be lucky if they get Lionel Messi in the 2026 World Cup. If Lionel Messi is in the 2026 World Cup, the team will be stronger.

I think Indonesian teams must focus on second round qualifying actually first two matches in qualifier round have away against Iraq and Philippines national teams. Actually on difficult situation when first two matches have away exactly Iraq is stronger opponent teams in Indonesia group stage. Realistic target Indonesia teams have finished on second position for qualifying to third round and get lucky drawing without have difficult opponent teams.
Current Indonesia squad teams have dominance by naturalization player, I hope with their experienced aboard with European teams can help Indonesia lead to third qualifying round and waiting will have chance qualifying to World Cup 2026 for the first time?

It is a long shot. Indonesia, as per the rankings is currently the 28th strongest team in AFC. And there are 8.5 slots available from this confederation for 2026 FIFA World Cup. As of now, Japan, South Korea, Iran and Australia are the top teams in AFC, followed by other GCC nations such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Oman. Iraq is also in the top-10 list. Indonesia got past the first round by defeating Brunei. In the second round, they need to compete against Iraq, Vietnam and Philippines, and all of them are ranked higher than them.

I will say that Brunei Darussalam is not a strong opponent for Indonesia. And for Indonesia, it was supposed to be easy to beat the team which is ranked 191 in the FIFA ranking.  But still, it was a good performance from Indonesia. Now it will be interesting to see how Indonesia will perform going forward.  And I also have to say that the performance from Brunei Darussalam was pretty bad, to be honest. The defense was absolutely horrible. But at the same time, we cannot expect too much from a team, that is ranked 191.

Choosing to go and play in the USA and in that team that occupied the last position in the league table in the USA, in my opinion it was the worst choice that Messi made, if his intention was not to retire due to football, then yes it was a serious mistake to have been on that team. This is because without playing against good players, next year he will start to drop in performance, as a result he will not be able to have much shine in the Argentine main team. and looking at the argentina team, they have a lot of good players, but they don't have any replacement for messi, probably on the day that messi stops playing, and the day that ronaldo stops playing, then the world of football will miss them so much

It's unbelievable that the years have passed and no players are appearing with the same brilliance and talent that Messi and Ronaldo have. It seems that perhaps only in the coming decades will we be able to see other players with the same talent, before these players came Maradona and Pele. Of course, there are many other players with talent, but they don't reach the same level of talent and popularity that Messi and Ronaldo managed to achieve. unfortunately they are in the last years of their career. In another 2 to 4 years they will stop playing football, this means that in the next World Cup, I'm talking about the one in 2026 due to their age, it will be the last for both of them, that is if they also manage to have the physique to be in the 2026 World Cup.

Undoubtedly, Lionel Messi is one the greatest footballers to have ever graced the beautiful round leather game of football and still very active and effective when he's playing but I doubt if he'll be part of Argentina squad in the 2026 world cup that'll be hosted in three north American countries.
I initially thought he was gonna retire from international football after the 2022 World Cup tournament but which he decided not to but I think the football superstar is gonna quit international football before the 20126 World Cup finals

Lately people here in Venezuela have felt quite enthusiastic with our team, after we managed to get a tie against Brazil and after getting a 3-0, defeating Chile this week.
Because of the more room this next World Cup will likely have for more teams, some friends of mine are already talking about the possibility of us getting to the next World Cup. How knows, we may have a chance to step a foot in the competition, but I would not get enthusiastic yet.

Our team is quite infamous among so many team in this region, for being specially underperforming.

What do you guys think, there will be a chance for us or this as just a strike of luck before getting back to the normal state of underperfomance?