Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 257. (Read 62712 times)

The players were at good fitness. By the time of 2026 World Cup Ronaldo will be 40+ and Messi will be close to 40 years of age. Messi have won the World Cup which gives him the satisfaction whereas Ronaldo might try for it once again. We don't know whether this will make them move further into playing than coaching the team. More young players are emerging out of every football country which could let the superstars take retirement and support the young players reach great success.

Can't be sure about the situation of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2026, we know both players are still superstars in their teams, Messi is still playing for a top European team while Ronaldo decided to continue his career in an Asian team with more money but can't be a reason to say Ronaldo should think about stop playing for his national team soon, also since Messi was one of the best players in 2022 world cup, he still has a high chance to play for Argentina in 2026.

Well, I believe the same happened with Cristiano Ronaldo, I believe that the 2022 World Cup was the last for both Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, I have no doubt that in the 2026 World Cup they will be able to be physically prepared and will be able to both play for their teams, but I have no doubt that the performance of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will decrease...

With the performance that Argentina presented in the first games of the 2022 world cup, I would never have imagined that they could win that cup, I would believe that Brazil could have reached the finals, but unfortunately Brazil made unacceptable mistakes against Croatia's game and lost that extremely important match

Argentina was one of the favorites, not only for their performance over the field but also because many people thought at the time that this was probably the last opportunity for Messi to win a world cup, which was the only cup he was missing and for which he was heavily criticized especially at Argentina, so many fans around the world were supporting Argentina to win the whole thing, and even if the performance of Argentina during their first game was shaky, at the same time this became a wake-up call which helped them to take every single opponent as seriously as possible and to not underestimate them.

Well.. it would be wrong to say that no one expected Argentina to win the 2022 World Cup. I still remember that they were the team with one of the best odds, after Brazil and France. And when the tournament started, they were second in the FIFA Rankings. And Argentina was fresh from the Copa America win, which was a major achievement for Lionel Messi as the captain. But then, the loss against Saudi Arabia during the first match changed everything. People started predicting that Argentina would not even qualify to the round of 16.

I agree that 64 teams would be pretty hard, I mean if we are talking about doing it on England for example, you can use all of great Britain and you could have from Ireland to Scotland to all of England and even some part of Wales and you can squeeze all those games within 1 month if you really want to, like make all the games on the same day from morning till night, some during the same hours in different stadiums, and that would definitely be possible.

But, when you have something like Canada/Mexico/USA, the distance is just way too much to make it work. However, we are trying 48 teams already, and we got here from so little, which shows that it is not impossible to have 64 in the future, if you asked people 40 years ago about 48 teams, they would say not likely as well but we have it now.

None of us knows which team will win the 2022 world cup Qatar. everything, is mere speculation and prediction. regarding the results, everything will be determined by the participants who took part in the 2022 world cup. and yes, in the end, Messi and his colleagues were able to achieve the dream they had been dreaming of. Argentina, managed to win this championship even though many pessimism doubted Argentina.

In the 2026 world cup, we will never know, which squad team will surprise. in fact, I doubt that Marroco will be able to get back into the semifinals. no exception, for Croasia, everything is still gray, after all, the qualifying round has not started yet. so, everything is still very far away for us to predict or determine. regarding Messi and Ronaldo, I hope they really retire at the 2026 world cup later. At the very least, it provides an opportunity for the regeneration of his successors. the era of Messi and Ronaldo is over, but they will always be remembered as living legends in the world of football.

It would be foolish to predict what the next World Cup will look like now. Because the FIFA authorities themselves may have started to think very little about these issues. But it can be expected that the next World Cup will be more spectacular than this one.

The argument of strong and weak sides isn't basically a useless argument as it is the reality of the world, there are always weak and strong sides in whatever game is played or even if it isn't a game and something else. There is no denying the fact that the weak can sometimes defeat the strong but that doesn't really mean that there is no concept of strong and weak at all, especially in football.

We tend to believe that hard work comes before luck, that's why we say that we won't get food just by sitting at home if we are lucky, but we have to do our part. That is exactly how it happens. A weak team does it's best to win against stronger sides, and since they are working hard, luck favours them at times, so they win. But, if stats and other things are checked, we can clearly see that they are a weaker side.

It will be interesting to see how Argentina is going to play in 2026 without Messi on the team, although it's still uncertain if he is really going to retire from the national team by there. As far as I know he hasn't closed the doors for his participation on the next world cup.

In negative case, I guess Argentina will lose a lot of performance potential, probably playing at same level of every other south american national teams, excluding Brazil, which must keep its solid reputation along the history of world cups.

But we never know. Every world cups always bring an underdog who performs outstandingly, like Morocco did, so why not a south american underdog next time? It's possible... We have 3 years ahead and that is enough time for many teams to prepare themselves to overcome the results achieved on previous editions of the competition.

Not many people thought that Argentina would secure the 2022 FIFA World Cup victory. Many saw Brazil as a great prospect but unfortunately Brazil exited in the quarter finals. Argentina played incredibly well, which surprised football fans around the world. But Lionel Messi is still really happy for this achievement.

That's exactly the point, for many top teams in the world there is the same situation. they sometimes think they can win any game against teams like Saudi Arabia whenever they are playing against these teams while in fact if they lose the game just like what happened in Argentina and Saudi Arabia, this can be a good reason for them to wake up and understand their mistakes, for Argentina, fortunately, this happened when they could still win the cup.

First and new concept with the FIFA World Cup 2026 Canada/Mexico/United States after participant adding from usually 32 participant and added will be 48 teams. One side I disagree with this new rule model because seems not compete and many weakness team will qualify to World Cup, but another side I am glad because my national team never participant in World Cup have bigger chance with Asian zone get more slot for next World Cup.

Usually need on month for FIFA World Cup matches I don't sure after adding 48 team will have efficient time and could be finish in one month or every day we watch many matches than usually have tow or three matches in group stage.

You are right Argentina after losing to Saudi Arabia created a great atmosphere among themselves which reflected in the next matches. After losing the match, the team played their best and managed to reach the title.

I think the defeat to Saudi Arabia actually boosted Argentina. They woke up from their slumber and learnt to focus on the game rather than being complacent. The same can't be said about Brazil though. The loss to Cameroon didn't did them any good (Vincent Aboubakar scored in the 92nd minute to give Cameroon a 1-0 victory over Brazil). Brazil destroyed South Korea in the next match, but then they went down against Croatia in the quarter-finals (to be fair, the match was decided based on penalty though).

man i remember that day like it was today, i'm a fan of argentina so i expected argentina to win that game against saudi arabia, but it was unbelievable to see that result at the end of the game, argentina that day had become the world's joke for having lost against saudi arabia, all social networks and tvs the subject was the same: the defeat of argentina; And everything even got worse because the Saudi Arabian players received a luxury prize, each player received a luxury car for having managed to beat Argentina, it was something unbelievable even for the Arabs themselves. but one thing is certain: argentina managed to score a goal first and then relaxed a lot and that's why they conceded a goal, they even did that in the last game, so betting on argentina and watching their games was a very difficult task, one had to be very patient until the end of the game
 

in the next world cup there will be 48 teams so things will be very different from any other world cup, with many teams participating it will be very difficult for the usual favorites to reach the final comfortably, maybe not even reach the final. as for messi, for me he will not play in the 2026 world cup, but ronaldo will not be surprised if he participates, it seems to me that he has no intention of retiring and giving way to other players, if he does not retire he will create discomfort in the portugal team, because he does not accept being on the bench and argues with the coach

Saudi Arabia beat Argentina haha. Based on this match, football fans thought Argentina would not do well in the World Cup. But Argentina is the 2022 World Cup Champions. In fact, I underestimated Argentina because they lost that match.

What I have learnt about the world cup is that it is full of surprises. We did not know that Argentina could ever win the world cup when Saudi Arabia won Argentina at the initial stage. The next would cup that is cup is going to be competitive more than the previous years because most of the team would be more prepared than the previous years to make sure that they get qualified and win.
Messi winning the world for his country Argentina was a great achievement that is making most of his fans to think that Messi is far better then Ronaldo. Although Messi and Ronaldo may not be participating in the upcoming world cup competition.

Even the South American teams that rarely qualify for the world cup (such as Bolivia and Venezuela) are exceptionally good. They can easily defeat the top sides from Asia, such as Iran, South Korea and Japan. So I agree with you. Argentina and Brazil are not the only good teams from CONMEBOL. Since limited number of slots are on offer, the CONMEBOL qualifiers are always fiercely fought. And 2030 is going to be even more funny in case the combined bid from the 4 South American countries wins the hosting rights.

Honestly, apart from Brazil and Argentina I can't see other South American teams performing well in the world cup.
Those who can get "closer" would perhaps be Uruguay, which performed better on the world stage, but even so it is far below the world average of teams that compete in the world cup.

Africa, on the other hand, is seeing a huge rise of previously overlooked teams that are now coming to the fore.
Morocco was just one example of the potential for good players there. I believe that in the next World Cup we should see more African teams qualifying for the next phase and who knows, maybe this country will be able to win more places for the next editions of the World Cup.