Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 173. (Read 57640 times)

NFL, NBA and MLB maybe immensely popular in the United States. But then, it is a country of 330 million people and a large share of the population originates from countries where football is very popular, such as Mexico, Nigeria and Italy. There is no doubt that the 2026 edition will be a larger success when compared to the one in 1994. And I don't agree with the argument that USA can't host all the matches. There are enough number of quality facilities available and they could have easily hosted all the matches. The reason why Canada and Mexico are hosting some of the matches are due to the fact that it was a "combined North American" bid.

Ok, let's then talk about Maradona's contribution to Argentina's 1986 world title and Messi's contribution to Argentina's 2022 world title.
As you know, one's contribution in a game depends not only on goals but also on assists, and both factors are important.
Maradona may have scored less goals than Messi, but almost all of his goals were in the knockout stages of the competition, when it matters most, and not in the group stages of the competition.
Maradona scored all four goals for Argentina in the quarter-finals and semi-finals against very tough opponents, England and Belgium.
His goal against Belgium in the semi-finals, when he went past 7 players of the opposing team, is still considered the best goal in the history of the World Cup.
Diego Maradona participated in 10 goals at the 1986 World Cup, 5 goals and 5 assists.
His final assist in the final against Germany brought Argentina the World Cup title.
So, when I say that Maradona practically single-handedly led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1986, it is not my opinion or an exaggeration, but an obvious fact.
However, Messi did not have such a big impact on Argentina's performances at the 2022 World Cup.
I advise you to look at the performances of Argentina in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of the 1986 World Cup, as I did, and then compare the performances of Argentina in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of the 2022 World Cup and then we can further discuss this topic, based on concrete facts and arguments.
I'm sorry that not everyone likes this but Maradona contributed much more to Argentina's 1986 world title than Messi did last year, especially because of what he did in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, when he single-handedly beat opponents.
Yes, Maradona is better than Messi, whether you like it or not.

Sources: https://www.90min.com/posts/diego-maradona-1986-world-cup-heroics-in-numbers
https://www.beinsports.com/en-mena/football/articles/maradona-at-60-the-star-of-mexico-1986-and-1

I would add that Maradona didn't score his goals from penalties but from play and most importantly, Maradona led an average Argentinian national team to the world title in 1986, and Messi still had a much stronger team behind him last year.

USA 94 was a hit and I have no doubts USA 2026 will be a hit too,maybe US citizens prefer more basketball and NFL but I am sure they have the capacity to welcome all the fans of all the teams participating there,not for without reason we are having this World Cup in three different countries,exactly because of the higher number of participating team,USA alone and no other country alone can have 48 teams fighting each other in a single month,for this more than one country is needed and I think it is a right decision from FIFA to hold this event in different countries near each other.

New rule model with FIFA World Cup 2026 because usually with 32 national teams participants will be 48, still not understand about the rule adopt starting from group stage until final stage exactly how many teams will qualify to each round. But for the host country seems they need rebuilding depend on football is not popular sport there and exactly they need with new stadium. Seems Mexico has bigger enthusiast for football than United State with their people more interested for NBA and football America. I don't think its right decision by choosing country with football is not popular in their country, maybe for the next world cup edition, need criteria with popular or not football in their country.

In the last twenty years I don't know when the last time America hosted the world cup, but I am quite excited to be able to watch the world cup in this great country. Qatar as the host of the previous world cup was also not too bad and the event was held quite lively there, it's just that as a majority Muslim country there, of course there will be so many rules that must be obeyed in terms of visitors. America is a country of freedom and of course everyone would prefer to come here while enjoying holidays in popular places, so I think this will be one of the best world cup hosts in terms of infrastructure to tourist attractions.

yes, makes sense
now thinking better about the question I see this shouldn't even be considered
curious to see what will happen
do we already have all the details about where and when it will take place?

I'm expecting that the event will be more prestige and more entertaining compared to the last World Cup events because this time, America is holding it and we know how competitive they are when it comes to big events like this. Moreover, they have a lot of time to prepare for the upcoming event as I know that even before the Qatar was finished hosting the recent World Cup, North American countries already knew that they are up next.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I am not aware of a statistic where Maradona was better than Messi. In 1986 Maradona scored 5 out of 14 team goals and Messi scored 7 out of 14 team goals. Maradona did not score in the final, but Messi did against France. They had an equal amount of scorer points due to assists. I know what you are saying about Maradona and how he has pushed the team, but the same applies to Messi. Both were/are exceptional players with abilities that are out of this world. For me Messi is the best ever because he was able to do all these genius shenanigans, like the free kick against Atletico Madrid . Everyone who has a clue about soccer knows that a goal like that is too good to be real. This is not the only goal of this category, he did that all the time. The smartness in his game is unprecedented and will probably not be surpassed by anyone ever. There isn't a single quality he is lacking that is not limited by his physical being, like saying is headers are bad doesn't really count for a guy who is 1.70. There is only so much you can expect in terms of headers from a guy of that size.

But to close our exchange of opinions ( ) I would still hope to see Messi be around for some time. Was always a pleasure to watch him play and I also always liked the good old videos about Maradona.

True, and the reason for the United States to host most of the games are mainly that the United States but much more facilities and potential to host the world cup than other countries, United States got enough hotels and stadiums to even host the world cup by itself alone.
Regarding AFC and CAF teams I think they have improved themselves a lot in the other hand in the 2022 world cup many European teams had bad performances and they let these teams have the opportunity to show better performance.

Again and again, the same argument. I have already countered it a few times. It was the smaller teams who made world cup more exciting in Qatar 2022. Morocco managed to reach the semi-finals and Cameroon, Australia, Senegal and Japan had their fair share of upsets. On the other hand, it was the UEFA teams like Belgium and Danmark who performed pathetically during last year's tournament. I am not denying the fact that historically UEFA and CONMEBOL teams have performed well. But that is the past. Now many of these teams are declining.

They are the teams that have won the most number of competitions, ever. A close second is CONMEBOL, and then it's a long way to the third place and the rest.

These are the best teams, and in my mind they should be more of those countries in the tournament.

Just adding more countries with lower skill level will drop the quality.

We saw that with Qatar. It was the only team way below the quality of the tournament. The games they played were not as entertaining as the others. If we continue to add other countries that have that level of skills the whole tournament will lower it's quality.

In the era of 2000 until now, football is growing rapidly in all countries around the world so that when compared to 1986 it will be very different.
Currently, every country has more than 1 large and luxurious stadium with more audience capacity, so the World Cup host can actually be placed in just one country.
For the 2026 World Cup, it will not only be held in one country because FIFA wants to make these three countries have greater potential in terms of football and we must support this so that the development of world football will be even better.

United States will be hosting about 80% of the matches so this argument of three countries hosting the world cup is not entirely true. And regarding the number of teams, it was long due. With the current format, the UEFA teams are over-represented in the FIFA World Cup. During the 1990s, it was justifiable, because back then the Asian and African teams were unable to compete against the UEFA teams. But now the situation has changed completely. AFC and CAF teams are giving good fight to the UEFA and CONMEBOL teams and this was very evident during the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

This world cup is going to be very interesting and unique because for the first time were going to have much more national teams in the world cup and on the other hand we are going to have three countries hosting the world cup at the same time.
However, the main host of the world cup is America, and the other two countries, Canada and Mexico are just helping America to host this tournament.

As far as I know friendlies don't affect their ranking and because of that, whenever big teams play in friendlies sometimes they don't play as well as they should. After all, if friendly matches affect their ranking, then of course they will play with the same atmosphere as when they played in the main match of the world cup and also other championships. So in essence, friendly matches are of course only limited to friendly matches which of course, they don't play seriously in full because they also often play more second tier players compared to the main players.

Just like how the Brazilian playing style dead and it's not even useful in the world cup like they were before, I think there are not many coaches in the world who want to have a player like Rene Higuita in their teams take risks like that, we know the fans like these players but a teams needs to win the game having players like Rene Higuita will just make them take some risk they don't need to get.

Ronaldo not charismatic? I think you should watch the edits people make of him, they think he is the most charismatic player to ever walk on this earth, they would disagree with you. Messi is not "charismatic" to me neither, and yet so many people think he is, that's what fans are all about. To me the greatest charismatic players ever were Cantona and Ibrahimovic, they were the dictionary example of what charisma meant and they played accordingly.

In the end, it is going to be not that easy to pick a player in that regard but as long as you are entertained by a player that means they did their job well enough, I think it will definitely be quite important to make as much changes as possible and should not be a big deal at all, just watch and have fun is enough.

Yes, I have already clarified this point, but FIFA has secured itself against fraud - friendly games are taken into account with an importance coefficient that ranges from 0.5 to 0.2 relative to other important games. And even if you do not take into account the possible fraud, these coefficients are necessary, since in friendly games teams always have different motivations - for some, an increase in the rating is important, and for some it is not at all. It could distort the real picture if it had the same weight as important games.

Argentina is a very special country where everyone is crazy about football and nothing is recognized as success except winning the world cup. Any other result is a disaster and a failure, and so it is in Brazil. It is very difficult to play under such enormous pressure from the public, and this can be seen in the example of Brazil and Argentina. Brazil has not been able to become the world champion for 20 years, and Argentina managed to become the world champion after a long 36-year wait.
Messi was also constantly compared to Maradona and it was said that he could not be the greatest Argentinian footballer in history if he failed to lead the national team to the world title. That was a huge pressure even for a football player like Messi. I think that winning the South American cup title before the world cup in Qatar helped him a lot and that he played in Qatar with less pressure.
Messi is a charismatic footballer and one of the best footballers in the history of football, but for me personally Maradona was still better. He practically single-handedly led Argentina to the title of world champion in 1986 and no one has ever been able to repeat that, such individual dominance in such a team sport.

Yeah, but even if Messi wouldn't have won, there would still be news about him all the time, explaining why he didn't win, etc. Basically at that level it doesn't matter what happens, people will talk about the person no matter what.

The opposite is actually ignoring the player. There are many great players that simply are not discussed in the media, and not because they are not great, simply because they are probably not the absolute best, or maybe they are more private, etc.