Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 197. (Read 62812 times)

Higuita was one of the few players that understood that this is not only a sport but also a spectacle that people watch, and if the players do not make it exciting then people will find other things to do with their time, some may argue that his antics risked scores against his team, but the fans loved him precisely because he was willing to take some crazy risks just for them to be entertained, unfortunately there are not many players like him anymore on the world of soccer these days.

Going the tit for tat route when comparing the US and Saudi Arabia is certainly possible, but I am not sure whether it makes too much sense. There are lots of indices and it is good to see that even the US gets criticized or scored lower than lots of countries when they actually deserve a lower score, but there are not even close to the disastrous overall freedom indices scores where Saudi Arabia is to be found. the comparison lacks substance in all respects and this is not because I want to say that the US is a holy country with no issues and errors. Indeed there is lots of stupid stuff going on, but again, it is not Saudi Arabia like.

I have also never said that I know why Messi chose not to go there. I said that it could possibly be a statement and apart from all that I am quite sure that he feels a little bit more free in Miami than in the cities of Saudi Arabia.That counts for his family as a whole. For the whole ecosystem I think it is good that not everyone ends up playing in the desert state.

Wow, we really know this one person with all his uniqueness. the Colombian goalkeeper nicknamed "El Loco" or "The Crazy" goalkeeper, not only has a sweeper style when blocking opponent attacks and starting team attacks, Higuita also often performs crazy actions by dribbling past opposing players to the middle of the field. uniquely, he does this style not only when appearing at the club. when strengthening the Colombian team, Higuita often showed his courage.

If I'm not mistaken, one of the most phenomenal actions occurred in England vs Colombia. if I'm not mistaken, this fight is a friendly match. and apparently, the action is a snippet in the image you shared. Until now, he has become a phenomenal football goalkeeper legend and crazy actions. I really like this goalkeeper, it's a shame that unique things like this are such a rare phenomenon. I always expect, at every World Cup event there is always something unique that happens or is shown.

Underfunding? man when you reach some level, that its not a problem, the players plays in important teams, than they only spend a few days with the national team, so you dont need so much.

That can be a prob lem when you are a very low level national team like 1250+ in the ranking because your players doesnt have also the conditions in their own teams.

Canada one of the co-hosts of the world lost 2-0 to another co-host the  United States in the CONCACAF Nations League final. The Canadian team had better ball possession but they failed to convert some of their opportunities. John Herdman the coach of the Canadian National football team confirmed that the major problem the team is facing is underfunding. He claimed that the government is not serious about supporting the team financially to enable them to prepare well for the world cup. The Canadian team is ranked 47th in the FIFA currently ranking and they also have some good players that play for top clubs in Europe.

I have heard the news of underfunding of football in developing or poor nations but it is strange to hear such news from a rich nation like Canada. A country that is an economic power cannot fund its national team or is starving its national team of funds. A team that is suffering financially can't make any positive impact in the world cup in 2026 unless they start receiving the needed support. I thought the host nations were supposed to give their national team the best attention to enable them to put up a good performance on thier home soil.


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/19/canadas-coach-calls-for-more-resources-ahead-of-2026-world-cup

Well, as for me, Messi between PSG and Inter Miami is much better than Inter Miami, however, I would not have rejected the option of the Saudi team, I think that for the next World Cup Messi will play for Argentina, and there will be no With respect to this problem, one could speculate that it is not, but Messi's age allows him to play one last World Cup, maybe they will convince him, wherever the World Cup is held, I know that Messi can shine. I think the same about CR7 He is an emblematic player, they are icons of the World Cups, and even if they have said that they will not play in a World Cup anymore, I think that the people around him will try to convince them, especially if they see that the replacement generation is not so good, they can spend like a day with Brazil, who called Dinho to reinforce the spirit and the Brazilian style of Soccer that is a very showy, beautiful and exquisite Fútbol.

Wow, nothing like the scorpion of René Higuita himself, an icon of Colombia, like the great "Pibe" Valderrama, I haven't really seen such controversial players and that made soccer a bit more joyful, before the players were more daring, they participated and they had a great taste for soccer and they had a lot to prove, now soccer is more conservative, the players don't take many risks and they learn and play a purely technical game, that's why sometimes some games become a bit boring, before you saw more plays around "dizzy", make tunnels, show off, now things have changed and that's a shame, because those things are what make children excited to play like those players.

We do have crazy saves and goal these days (in second division or in local clubs games), they are just dont aired so much. In an important games, players are focused and prefer not to risk a lot. WThat moment in gif was from a friendly game between England and Columbia. A friendly game - I think teams dont play much on a result in this game. Also, if you look in a full version of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0bSvDkXqhw) it was an offside So even if England score, it wont be counted

You can search on YouTube for futsal (it is also called Five-a-side football sometimes) compilations and get even cooler crazy things.

I think Neymar should be considered one of the greats as well, maybe he hasn't really shown his skills as much as he could have, and there were a lot of times he just got injured constantly that caused him to leave the team behind, but as a skill level, I do not think that he was behind any of the players you named, he was as skillful as any of them gets.

Remember he was a big player even before he went to Barcelona, so he was always a great player and during the time he played at Barcelona, dude was one of worlds greatest players, even talked about winning a ballon d'or or two in a few season stretch, him with Messi and suarez really ended up playing like magic together, they were just incredible and really loved to see that period for sure.

Your comment reminded me of Rene Higuita, the goal keeper from Colombia, who was famous for doing acrobatic saves, the most common one called The Scorpion:



I don't think we see much of these crazy things these days.

LOL.. you can't even compare the 1986 edition to the recent ones. Back in 1986, there were just 24 participants and 52 matches were played in total. For the 2026 edition, there are a total of 48 participants and more than a hundred matches. However the 1986 edition was played in some of the largest football stadiums that existed back then. For example, the Estadio Azteca alone has a capacity to host 114,600 fans. And this was where the final, and one of the semi-final matches were played. Estadio Jalisco hosted the other semi-final back then.

Earlier the football playing nations were to host the tournament. In that manner Mexico might've got the opportunity to host FIFA. Now everything have changed completely, and money is more powerful. This we can see with USA hosting majority of the matches. Another reason is with the good oil money on the queue for the 2030 FIFA World Cup hosting.

Any match that's played during the FIFA break for international teams to play football will definitely gonna count during the FIFA ranking.
Match fixing is a big sin when it comes to FIFA so if there's any national team that's good at affecting the scoreline of any game with their tactical approach, one day will face the consequences of match fixing.

Years ago when we had these players like Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, their playing style was amazing and many people were watching the games just because of these players, while after these years we don't have any players with this playing style anymore and the football systems change, that's why teams like Brazil are not getting good results in the world cup anymore.
In most of the recent World Cups, the European teams had better performances than teams like Brazil.

The real host of the 2026 world cup is America, not Canada or Mexico because most of the games going to be hosted by America and I think two other countries are going to just help America in some games.
That's why I said that about America, however back in 1986 Mexico hosted the world cup but that's more than 35 years ago and everything changed.

Every time when I read about these comparisons, it is usually about the offensive players and I can understand that as it often is the most impressive position when you see them scoring or dribbling, but Brazil also had some amazing defensive players. Recently, they didn't have a very consistent defense line and also no combining elements between the defense and the offense. They often play as separate parts while they usually were known for controlling the game from the keeper to the striker with all the quality they have. It is still three years until the next World Cup, but it is not enough time to build an entire new team until then. But changes need to be done if their goal is to compete for the World Cup title.

Sometimes we as the fans are maybe too critical with the teams as well because we were used to some nations dominating soccer and now it becomes more even and smaller nations can compete on a higher level. Croatia is one of those teams that with a small population can beat the best teams anyway. losing against Croatia is not a shame and Brazil wasn't worse in the quarter final. But there is a certain absolutism when teams are judged for their performance. If a team like Brazil doesn't win the title, a lot of people tend to say that it is not the old and strong Brazil. But there are so many teams that could potentially win a tournament and many games end with close results or even with penalties. Croatia had to survive the round of 16 and the quarter final with penalties and now again against Spain in a different competition. The difference in quality and strength between the teams has become more narrow.

Do friendly games affect the rating of national teams? I highly doubt it, because in this case they would be much more important than now, plus some teams guessed to cheat (on purpose to lose to those who really need it or, on the contrary, choose opponents who are definitely weaker) and this would lead to scandals.

I think Rivaldo was also one of the great players of Brazil, but he never gets too much attention.

One of the most epic moments was his incredible hat trick for Barcelona against Valencia, for a 3-2 win. And the final goal, which qualified Barcelona for the Champions League, was at the last minute, and looked like this:



You can read more about that spectacular performance here: https://www.sportbible.com/football/21-years-ago-today-rivaldo-scored-the-greatest-ever-hattrick-20220617

Pele, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo are the legendary players of Brazil. No one really compares with them. It may not be wrong to call them the best players of Brazil. Every player in the current Brazil team is very skilled and talented but they still have Pele, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo as their idols. Everyone imitates them and wants to be like them. However, Brazil deserves a trophy through the members who are currently in the Brazil team. Having won the World Cup five times so far, they now aim to win the Mission Hexa. For almost five seasons they have been dreaming of winning Mission Hexa but so far they have not been able to fulfill that dream. It is hoped that this dream of Brazil can be fulfilled through the current team of Brazil.

With its current condition, Indonesia must go through two rounds first after that enter the main qualifying round, and compete with 18 countries and ranked first and second will qualify for the 2026 World Cup. The journey is very long, if the Indonesia team can qualify for the first playoff there will still be a second playoff of course it will be even more difficult, and even more difficult in the main qualifying round, because there are strong teams from Asia who have often qualified for the world cup.
It is a real pride to qualify for the World Cup, but to be honest I prefer to see Indonesian football develop even better than focusing on the World Cup target, because it would be embarrassing to qualify but not even be able to score goals.
The development of football in Indonesia only focuses on making players famous rather than improving skills, Indonesian football organizations should be more aggressive in sending their players to compete outside Indonesia if necessary outside Asia to improve skills, because if someone says that the skills of Indonesian footballers are not inferior to other countries, they often Competing in the World Cup is nonsense because if it's true let alone the World Cup and even the Asian Cup we are mediocre, and using the Sea Games gold medal as a benchmark for progress is foolish because the scope of the Sea Games is very small.

Mexico also has hosted it before. And it will be the first time for Canada. Although most of the matches are actually going to be played in the US.

It will be a bit tricky to watch all the games as the time difference will change from time to time as there are multiple time zones involved. Hopefully the local times for most people are not too bad.