Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 188. (Read 57684 times)

Yeah, Messi is a super star, of course.

He is a good player today, but definitely he was better ten years ago.

Aging is a fact of life, and there's nothing we can do about it. New players will come and take his place. He already did everything there is to do in football.

Soccer has never been popular in USA. A decade ago, during the World Cup of South Africa, people started saying the sport was getting more popularized there and that the national team would become a great potency on the following years, but it just didn't happen. Americans haven't developed considerable interest for soccer yet, and it seems there isn't a tendency showing they will. They are a people who like preserving their traditional habits or developing their own methods. They export culture and a way of life, but don't import it very much.

At same time it's good news for foreigners who will have more tickets to buy for the games, more opportunities to watch the matches, since the local public isn't very interested on it...

Either way, it's not that shocking because USA have their major sports as well that has been supported by the vast majority living in their country. They have MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL, so it actually makes sense why the data above is saying that Americans doesn't support or like soccer that much, or football as other countries call it except in America as they have another sport meant for football under NFL.

This is funny because you are actually talking about the year when he scored 91 goals in 69 games in 2012 (when he turned 25), shattering all records during that year with Barcelona and Argentina. There is no point in comparing the 25 year old and 35 year old Messi and then saying that one was better than the other. At 25 he was unstoppable as a striker and dribbler. At 35 he is more of an organizer for the game. But the numbers for the year 2012 when he was 25 are that insane, it doesn't make sense to say that he was a better player at 35. See all his performances and his one-man-shows in the Champions League and in La Liga, scoring up to five goals in a game. We won't see that Messi again, but now we have a different one and he is still one of the best.

I was checking the article from 2020 and they're studying Messi's performance in different seasons however during all these seasons he was playing for Barcelona but this shows us how stable was Messi's performance in the different seasons. But he had this situation until 2020 and now is in 2023 when even Messi's performance is not the same unstable anymore. It will be even worst in the next years.




https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37583978/ronaldinho-barcelona-understudy-goat-candidate

Again I have to disagree with you. Did you watched Lionel Messi during Qatar 2022? He was 35 year old. And for me, he was playing at his peak form. When he was 25 years old, I don't think that he was this good. So you can't issue generalized statements. Including younger players is good for the team. But if the younger players are not performing up to the mark, how they can be included in the squad? Players like Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Modrić and Kane are rare. Such players emerge only once in a while. You can't suddenly include some young player and expect him to play like Messi. 

English is one of the languages that is spoken in most parts of the world. It will be a good advantage for an English-speaking nation to host the world cup. It will help the fans from different countries to communicate freely without language barriers. The official language of Canada is also English and French which will also be a plus to the world cup. But with the introduction of artificial intelligence tools, languages can be interpreted and responses made with ease.


A good world cup team should be a blend of experience and strength. The old players might not have much stamina to run around or create chances but their wealth of experience is always priceless. Experienced strikers will know how to beat the offside line, they have great positioning skills and some of their shots are always accurate. While experienced defenders might commit fewer fouls and booking offenses. These advantages will not set aside the need for strong and young players. These set of players might be inexperienced but they are the hard worker in the team. They are fast and strong which helps the team to create chances and score goals. I am sure that players like Messi, Ronaldo, Modric, and Benzema might feature in the next world cup. They might not be strong but they have experience.

Absolutely, even a superstar in their late thirties is worse than a good player at their early twenties.

It's a sad reality, but that's just how biology works.

Doesn't really matter even if the players try to have themselves in the best form and increase their fitness levels to play at any age. Still, we all know a player with the age of more than 35y old can't have a good performance like a player in 25y old, and nothing can change this, even if the player is in their best form.
That's Why I think instead of using old players the national teams should start focusing on younger players and making them ready for the world cup.

I think you have a wrong vision of Arab countries. A lot of them learn English because it is multinational language to trade with other countries, people, nations (and Arabs love to trade), a lot of them learn English to move from their countries in search for a better place to live and earn. They learn English to bring best specialists to their own country and learn from them. If a person is not from deep desert (sorry if that comparison offend someone), then 99% that person would speak English.
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Depends on the person of course, there are a lot of Arabic people in all other nations as well, look at the population numbers and you will see, specially after the Arab spring a lot of qualified people left and started living in the west right now.

But, the people who are doing fine in their own nations wouldn't leave of course, why risk and leave, I am not English neither and yet as you can see I learned English anyway, just because one learns English doesn't mean they want to leave or they left, it just means it is the lingua franca of the world right now and that's why it is such a good thing to learn, it allows you to read and learn so much and communicate with so many more people. We both could have different native languages but can understand each other in English.

Which is why FIFA wants to hold the world cup at the US, they want to increase the interest on soccer as they know that if they can do it then the market that will open to them will be huge, now this will be hard as they are competing against the four major sports on the US, but if soccer makes the list as the fifth or they can replace one of them then that would be a big win for FIFA, what surprises me about that chart is that roughly half the people at England have no interest at soccer, as this is the sport they created and it is the most popular sport around the world.

Even if these data are correct today, they make little sense if you look not at percentages but at the population. For example, Mexico has 125 million inhabitants, Argentina has 50, and the United States has more than 300. Obviously, simply due to the number of people, this is the largest market, and if we also take into account solvency, then they will not have a single competitor.

I think you have a wrong vision of Arab countries. A lot of them learn English because it is multinational language to trade with other countries, people, nations (and Arabs love to trade), a lot of them learn English to move from their countries in search for a better place to live and earn. They learn English to bring best specialists to their own country and learn from them. If a person is not from deep desert (sorry if that comparison offend someone), then 99% that person would speak English.

Language is not a problem nowadays. In your mobile phone you can install applications that can convert your audio to any language of your choice. Even during the 2002 edition that was hosted by Japan and South Korea, none of the fans complained about language issues. And I guess the same happened during the Qatar edition as well. Even if some of the fans are visiting the stadiums and they are not comfortable in English, there will be volunteers to help them and they will be fluent in different world languages. Anyway, the 2026 edition is going to be interesting.

The best thing about USA is their customer services. And also it is an english country.
otherwise in many other countries language is a big problem. Especially in Arab and other countiers where people dont like speaking english it is very difficult to make you understand what you are trying to say

Well.. everyone knows that the United States will provide the best facilities for the tourists. That is not one of the concerns, actually. I am more worried about the visa issues. And this edition is being co-hosted by three countries - Canada, United States and Mexico. I am not sure about the visa procedure in Mexico, but for the other two countries it is not that easy. And till now, FIFA hasn't clarified whether there will be a special visa procedure for those who want to attend the world cup in person. This creates a lot of uncertainty for the fans.

we can't see the statistics because it's been too long and on the other hand, of course, football fans in America at this time have increased after 9 years and in fact, even though America doesn't have many football fans, America is very generous and enthusiastic, willing to provide any facilities. needed to host the 2026 World Cup.
and I think America will provide the best facilities when the world cup takes place.

It's not just Spain. In the playoff phase Portugal also tried the same approach and failed. What the teams need is an ideal mix of younger players and the experienced ones. France is a perfect example for such a team, and Argentina also comes close. And I don't agree with the argument that 38-29 year old players should not play for the national teams. Nowadays the players maintain adequate fitness levels, so that they remain competitive even at that age.

It is not bad that the players who are veterans have action, I also think that 38-39 years is not that bad, nor old, taking only young players is not good either, just look at the example that Luis's Spain team gave Enrique, a total failure, they had so many good players and they didn't want to take the ones who really play well, so taking veteran players and young players is the right combination, I do believe that veterans are needed so that they can get ahead Otherwise they would have the action that Spain had in Qatar.

For two reasons mainly; one is the fact that the old player has already played with most of the players you have, so they have a chemistry instead of getting a new younger player who would get used to playing with those people, on the other hand there is the fact that old players are not as old as they used to be, because players would retire at 32-35 range back in the day but because we evolved a lot higher these days, people can play as old as 40 years old, and not really retire before that, not unless they want to of course.

So when you combine these two together, you end up with a situation where players can be brought even when they are older, like how I assume we will see Messi at next world cup as well, he will be better than any other alternative.