Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 20. (Read 67746 times)

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.

Other countries are the same, for example Australia who lost in their first match, even though on paper they were highly favored. From the statistics, they have only won once, while the other 4 ended in a draw. This group is full of surprises and I think Indonesia is also lucky, because when they need another match to end in a draw, it always happens. For example, in the match between Bahrain vs Australia, the match ended in a draw and that was beneficial for Indonesia. Even China has won 2 even though the other 4 matches ended in defeat.

Yes, they appeared as a debut team in the World Cup qualifiers, this is the highest achievement ever achieved by this team. So it was quite surprising when they were able to hold a draw and even win against a team that was already experienced in the World Cup.

They were able to reach this point, in addition to having a great coach and extraordinary players, but they also have a kind federation chairman who understands football. Erick Tohir "the golden hand", is the chairman of the Indonesian Football Federation, he has quite good connections with FIFA and European leagues, so it is quite easy for him to bring in players of descent who compete in European leagues. and even to add depth to the squad, the Indonesian National Team continues to add ammunition almost every month. And let's just say Paes, Mess Hilger, Kevin Diks and others, they are players who are prepared for the Dutch National Team in the future, even some of them have the opportunity to enter the Dutch main National Team. But for some reason they chose to fight for the Indonesian National Team, a debut team that has just entered the third qualifying round. But what is certain, what made them switch to defending the Indonesian National Team, besides their love for their homeland, Indonesia also has an incredibly large fanatical fan base. Because when they joined the Indonesian National Team, they were immediately like top European star players who had many fans.

European and American teams have always dominated World Cup tournaments, while Asian teams rarely do well in World Cup tournaments. To do well, only a few teams from Asia qualified to play in the World Cup, including South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Japan and some other teams. However, since the number of teams in the 2026 World Cup will be relatively increased compared to the last World Cup, it is thought that some new teams from Asia can qualify to play in the main stage of the World Cup.

As Football World Cup is one of the most popular tournaments nowadays, the competition will be more interesting as the number of teams increases in this tournament. There are many teams in Asia who have been trying for a long time to qualify for the main stage of the World Cup but due to the relatively small number of teams they have not yet got that opportunity. Hope their dreams come true in the upcoming World Cup.

Just like you think, of course against Japan is a difficult match for Indonesia to win in the second leg later, but Indonesia must at least be able to appear solid, disciplined and maximum in the  match to at least be able to get one point, they must learn from the defeat they got from Japan in the previous match where Indonesia must be able to minimize the slightest mistake in the next match,  Against Bahrain and China, I think it is their chance to win 3 points if we look at their actual performance better than Bahrain and China although in the first leg they failed to get full points over that the two teams, while the match that I think will be very balanced will of course when face Australia later, although Australia current ranking is higher than Indonesia, but I think they will still be able to keep up with the fast game and long passes from Australia later.

There are still 4 match and of course every team that previously made mistakes can definitely learn to perform better and not repeat all their mistakes again, from the remaining match it will make them more enthusiastic to be able to add as many points as possible.
Indonesia will still face Australia, Bahrain, China and Japan but only 3 match still allow Indonesia to have the opportunity to add points because of the four team, only Japan is the most difficult to beat.
I sure Indonesia can still occupy second place later.

I think a lot will change when the 2026 World Cup starts. because I feel that teams like Iran, Japan and South Korea are currently developing and trying to continue to grow their quality. And so do the other teams. And because the 2026 World Cup will be very different from the 2022 World Cup. Because in the 2026 World Cup there will be 48 teams competing. And reportedly there will be 12 groups in the group stage. All of this will make all possibilities more difficult for us to guess. Even teams that are not seeded could bring big surprises at the 2026 World Cup. And I feel that there is greater enthusiasm from all the prospective participants for the 2026 World Cup. So it is not surprising that almost all national teams are currently investing more resources to build a better squad to be able to qualify for the World Cup.

The competition in Group C of the Asian Zone World Cup Qualifiers is very tight, and only Japan seems confident of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. Japan is the strongest team in this group and only Australia was able to hold Japan to a 1-1 draw, but if the Australian players were not careless enough in making saves, maybe Australia would have won 3 points from Japan.

and regarding Saudi Arabia, it seems they are quite frustrated with the points they have obtained in the last 6 matches, where they have only been able to collect 6 points. Changing coaches is their strategy to improve team performance and bring more winning points, but so far the results have not been as expected. and in my opinion this is not a coach problem, but a player problem. Saudi Arabia has the best league in Asia, but why are they not the best national team in Asia? and it is suspected that this can happen because the Saudi Arabian league is filled with many European players, European players are the main stars in the league, while local Saudi Arabian players only fill the reserve bench with few playing minutes, and this is what causes the performance of the Saudi Arabian national team players to decline.

Lastly speaking about Indonesia and China, they are two teams that were previously considered as goal barns and bottom teams. But surprisingly, both teams were able to become strong competitors to compete for the runner-up position.

There have been a couple of results by teams like Iran that came out of nowhere. Just remember the win that Saudi Arabia achieved against Argentina in the last World Cup, that was impressive and the smaller nations haven't been that far behind for quite a while now. They would still need some luck in games like that, but still they should be taken more seriously than maybe 20 years ago as they have all invested some resources into building better teams.

But ultimately the small nations may be able to disturb the arrogant bigger football nations from time to time, but they won't be able to take home a trophy like the World Cup. There is a gap that is too wide to make it possible for them to fight their way through the final group stage at the World Cup itself. They may win a game, but even they were to make it through the group stage, other countries would take them more seriously than in the past.

Saudi Arabia said they have a plan as they want to take a ton of resources, which they want to put into football, but the plan can't be to waste most of that money on players from abroad who will then leave once they received the paycheck of their lives.

Especially since Saudi Arabia wants to be the host in 2034, they now have a good incentive to do the right things and they should rather sign directors and coaches and not too many already wealthy players.

It almost feels unusual the kind of consistency we see with Iran in this qualifiers game, only that they may not be able to scale through with this performance in the actual world cup games because it's obvious they didn't get a really challenging team in this qualifiers as much as they will be getting in the main game actually but for their performance so far, it's been a really awesome one and Japan isn't doing any bad either so let's not think they aren't retaining their status as one of rhw biggest team in Asia.

Australia and Saudi Arabia's condition is not that good. But Indonesia might find it quite difficult to take 2nd place in the standings. Although there is still a chance I think Saudi Arabia or Australia might be more favored.
Unfortunately, Australia was held to a draw by Bahrain in the last match, if they win, their chances would be greater. Australia might be able to get a win from Indonesia and China in the remaining matches. But getting a win from Japan and Saudi Arabia will be a difficult match.
But anyway, the situation could change. Maybe we will see a surprise if Indonesia can take 2nd place in the standings. They made a lot of changes, from the weakest team and now might be a dark horse.

Yes. FIFA ranking matters a lot because it shows that how much team is strong.  Iran national football team team got first position in their group which proved that team is good team with best players  and we saw last match of that team which they played against Kyrgyzstan  football team. That was good match but that winner of that match was Iran  football team as expected and Kojo tried to do goals in this match and he did 2 goals but his team could not win this match and was behind 1 goal in this match. Japan football team performance is also good and they won last match against china football team. China team could do only one goal in this match  but Japan team did 3 goals in this match and that was one sided match.

The Indonesian national team not a team have experience in international competitions, especially the world cup so far, but the enthusiasm of the Indonesian people in watching football (world cup) is clearly very large, even from the latest survey recorded that so far Indonesia in the 15th position as the most enthusiastic country to watch football, so I think if Indonesia can qualify for the world cup later of course it will be a new history for them,  but indeed to qualify of course not an easy thing although it is also not impossible for them, because the victory over Arabia has opened up these opportunities, Indonesia needs to maximize every remaining match that exists, so that at least they can still qualify through the qualifying round while still staying in the 3rd or 4th position later.

Indonesia's chances of qualifying directly for the World Cup are still open, but at least they have to win 3 matches out of the remaining 4 matches, assuming that Japan will be able to sweep all their matches with victory. But realistically, certainly being in 3rd or 4th place is the most realistic target, so Indonesia will be in the 5th round of the Asian zone World Cup qualifiers. From the start, Indonesia was the weakest team in this group and what they have shown so far has really been a huge surprise. But on the other hand, Australia is also in a not-so-good condition, because they are the most favored country to be in 2nd place, so Indonesia can take advantage of this moment.

I know Japan to be the superpower of Asian football but how Iran have maintained consistency in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers have been surprising to me. Just like Japan, Iran have been able to garner 16 points from 6 games and are comfortably sitting at the top of their group. It's one thing to have a flawless qualifying series but another thing to replicate same performance in the finals of the FIFA World Cup but if Iran can remain this consistent when the tournament kicks off, I'm sure they'll be beating their best record in the competition.

Well, these three teams, namely Iran who won Group A and South Korea who won Group B and Japan who won Group C, I think it is almost certain that they will qualify for the 2026 World Cup. And actually this is not a strange thing. Because these three national teams have already become regulars to qualify for the World Cup. So seeing these three countries win their respective groups in the 3rd round of the group stage was something that everyone could have predicted from the start. And these three teams really seem to be able to face all matches with little difficulty. Especially Japan and Iran. Japan and Iran can be said to be superior to South Korea. But that's a natural thing because in FIFA rankings Japan is ranked 15th, Iran is ranked 19th, while South Korea is ranked 22nd. And I think their quality is in accordance with their ranking in FIFA.

Japan and Iran is still unbeated and they have same points too because they can collect 16 points from 6 matches and these records is proven there was no serious contender for them during qualification stages because Iran and Japan almost certainly can win from their opponents and i think most likely Iran and Japan will be advances to the world cup 2026 without any problem but do not forget too about South Korea because they also as the strongest team in group B and South Korea too similar to Iran and Japan because they also still unbeated and South Korea also can occupy first place and i think they also will be advances as group champion too