Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 23. (Read 68869 times)

I am still hopeful that Australia will be able to qualify. At the moment, Japan is far ahead of the rest with 16 points. Of the 6 matches played so far, they have won 5 and the remaining match was a draw (against Australia). Now coming to the remaining teams, Australia has 7 points, followed by 6 each for Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Indonesia is at 3rd place thanks to higher number of goals scored. Now this is a surprise. No one actually expected Indonesia to perform better than Saudi Arabia.

In Group C everything is still difficult to predict. Only Japan seems to have confirmed that it will qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile, the rest, such as Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia and China, all continue to change places. And there is still time until the next match is held. So all these teams have plenty of time to make better preparations.

I am very curious about the Indonesia vs Bahrain meeting again which will be held at the Glora Bung Karno stadium which is famous for its different atmosphere from other stadiums. In fact, one of the Saudi Arabian players who is also a player from the Al-Hilal club, namely Ali Albulayhi, who is usually a player who is known to be quite fierce and brave, turned out to be different when he played against Indonesia at GBK. 

There are some players who change their nationality because they are over twenty-five years old and do not get the opportunity to play in a higher level national team. But there are also players who change their nationality because they get a better team. As we can see, there are many "African-descent" players who play in European teams such as France, England, Spain or Germany. All choose to play in a national team for various reasons. And in fact, Indonesia has players with the youngest average age in this third round of qualification. This shows that most players who choose Indonesia are those who are young and still have the opportunity to play in other countries. Even as far as I remember there were players who had played in the Dutch U-15 national team or other age groups. FIFA rules prohibit players who have earned caps in the senior national team from changing nationality but do not apply if they are still playing in the age group. This shows that there is a sense of nationalism in every player who chooses to play for Indonesia.

I am not trying to defend Indonesia. But some players who have been naturalized will become non-European players and will be subject to high taxes for non-European players and will be part of the restrictions on non-European players in each league. This shows that they faced some problems when choosing to move to non-European citizens but they chose the risk to be able to become part of the Indonesian national team.

It is a short period of time though and you can see that national teams like that from Saudi Arabia can't evolve within no time despite investing billions into infrastructure, player development and stars from abroad. Japan was on a good way, but they had some lows in the meantime which I didn't fully understand. The one way you can take a shortcut is when you buy a whole team like Qatar once did in handball, but as far as I know there are rules in place that prevent that from happening in football. By the way, I think that rule is good because it would suck if countries that have a lot of resource could just buy an entire team of superstars from all over the world. That wouldn't have much to do with eye level competition and passion and so on.

But I think you are right that these three countries could improve at least to some degree if they are willing to invest a certain amount of money. High quality education and support in sports costs money, that is a matter of fact.

Though I still think that teams like France, Spain, maybe England, Argentina, Germany will come out on top. However, I don't know whether the USA team for instance might be carried by public support so much that they are able to surprise us all. Could be, could be not. Same for Mexico, very obscure to me because you don't see too many Mexican players being internationally recognized these days and I don't know how much energy and ambition it could set free if they have their people behind them. But it would probably need a miracle for them to beat the top teams.

The next matches will be only in spring, I think if the teams have a desire, they will be well prepared during the preparation of national teams outside the club championships, but I think not every team has a chance to reach the next stage, Bahrain does not look a strong team and is likely to remain at the bottom of the table, but in general the whole group is like this with the exception of Japan, so anything can happen.

The top two ranked teams of each group will qualify for the world cup directly. Third and fourth placed teams will go to fourth round.
In the fourth round, there will be two groups of three teams. The winners will qualify for the world cup. The runners-up will play against each other and the winner will go to inter-confederation play-offs.

Players will prefer to play for the Dutch national team than representing Indonesia. The Oranje Holland is highly rated and will offer better conditions for players. One can easily get a good club just because you are part of the Dutch national team. Players usually dump these highly rated teams for lower-placed national teams because they have sensed that they might never have the opportunity to play in such teams. Another reason might also be they don't have age on their side so they need to look for available teams that can make them play international games before they retire. Most of these players who switch allegiance in my country are above twenty-five.

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.