Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 281. (Read 62619 times)

The reason for world's best players from Europe or South America is that they take football as their most favourite and first sport as Asia have cricket. 
Europe train football to kids from their childhood and they play football everywhere its school,  clubs , or college universities they have football everywhere so they become extremely fine and polished with time .
Unfortunately this don't happen in Asia or other countries.

Maybe playing at a top European club makes it easier for players from Croatia to get calls from the national team and it seems that this is also a natural thing for other big national team players at this time. When a player only plays in a local league, of course they will receive less attention from the national team coach and indeed they should be able to prove in the eyes of the world, especially in the top European leagues so that they can get a definite place in the national team.

The quality of Brazilian and Argentinian football leagues is incomparable to Croatian football league. I was comparing the situation where all the best players are playing in the top European clubs. All the South American stars that you mentioned played in the European clubs in their best years. It's the same with the best Croatian players.

But I don't think you can compare the Croatian league with the Brazilian or Argentinian ones. By the way, most of the Croatian national team players also play for European clubs. It's just that South American football has always been top class. That's where we know most of the stars from, including Pele, Maradonna, Ronaldinho. And of course the new star, Messi.

Definitely South Americans were always favorite football players, they manage to produce exceptionally talented strikers. I think the reason why they are so successful in football is following:
1. Football is very popular in their culture and people love it very much.
2. Most of the time, it's very warm in South American countries.
3. Parents let children to play most of the time and the relationship between neighbors and kids, people is warm. In Europe, parents push their kids to study and spend most of the time to learn school subjects and don't let their kids play that much outside. Also, relationships between people isn't that warm in Europe, people prefer to be more isolated.
Also, the current state of poverty and possibility of earning a good money gives more boost to South American kids. I mean, when you are poor and have no money but it chase it, you are more likely to succeed in life than a person who was born in a family that always had comfort.

I would compare this with Croatia and their lousy football league, while their national team is among the top football teams in the world. If you look at it, Croatian football teams doesn't have shiny sports facilities and training camps. But also very few players in the Croatian national team actually plays in Croatia. It's similar with Brazilian and Argentinian football players. Very few of their national team players actually play in their home football leagues. Most of them play in top European clubs.

The reason why South American teams perform well in the world cup is unexplainable. Brazil have won the world cup five times, Argentina three times and Uruguay 2. Comparing the sports facilities and economic conditions of UEFA and CONMEBOL member countries, the former is more advanced and better. I think South American players are more talented and they produce some of the best stars in football history, Pele and Maradona are good examples. But we have seen a lot of improvement by the African sides, their chance of winning the world cup is also high based on Qatar's performance.

Well.. this is a very interesting statistic. The conclusion I can draw out of this is:

1. There is a higher chance of an UEFA team winning the world cup, simply because far more teams from UEFA participates when compared to any other confederation (13 teams till 2022).
2. For CONMEOL, since 4.5 teams are allowed, the chances are considerably less.
3. But out of the 11 finals between CONMEBOL teams and UEFA teams, the former won on 8 occasions. This means that in one-to-one encounters (where UEFA doesn't have the numerical advantage), CONMEBOL dominates the scene completely.

Watching talented young athletes is exciting. Messi and Ronaldo's success saddens everyone. It's intriguing to picture football and future players without these two giants. Lucas Roman, a Portuguese youngster, is impressive. These players must live up to Messi and Ronaldo, but they can also build their own history. As a football fan, I'm optimistic

What will be the motivation for Messi to keep playing until 2026? For every player, the ultimate dream is like winning the FIFA World Cup. And in case of Messi, he has already achieved that milestone. So what will keep him playing on until 2026? In normal circumstances, players nearing retirement would rather pounce on opportunities which will give them financial security. And Messi already has an offer from the Saudi club Al Hilal. If he moves to Al Hilal, then in all probability he may not represent Argentina anymore. I am not saying that he will take up the Saudi citizenship (which Ronaldo is rumored to be considering). But he maybe part of the Saudi bidding team for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which may make him ineligible for the selection for Argentine national team.

Might be true mate but you know that it also means that it might not be true to Messi's case because just like you've said, most of the players aren't willing to see themselves performing poorly at that age, that is why they want to retire first before any of that happens. But, you know Messi is not just your average player as he's one of the rarest species in football just like CR7, so that said, he might see him again in the 2026 defending their title.

I see no reason why Messi would want play the next world cup, it doesn't make any sense to me. The truth is that by that 2026 he won't even have that strength to go for a competition like that. In the next two year I'm not sure Messi will be active the way he is right now, young players will take over the space of Messi.

CR7 is no longer likely to play in the 2026 world cup but Messi is still possible because in 2026, Messi is only 38 and it seems that this is an age that is still very fit for Messi

but we'll see what the Argentina coach will do later, if there are other potential young players, it's not impossible that Messi will be on the bench even though I see the possibility that it will happen very little because Messi is still very much needed by the Argentina national team

Even before, Messi had announced his retirement in 2016 from the Argentine national team when he failed twice in the Copa America, but he came back and finally managed to get the title he dreamed of and  the situation will definitely be very different at the 2026 world cup and at that age he will definitely experience a decline so stay in the Argentina national team may no longer be his target and usually the defending champion will have difficulty in the next WC so it would be very honorable for Messi to only as a spectator and give supports on young players from their countries who will play.

If Argentina had not won the 2022 World  Cup it would have been a very  difficult decision for Lionel Messi to retire not to participate in 2026 World cup. Even if age will be of challenge to him he will force himself then to play the world cup, this the same issue of Ronaldo.  He thinks he hasn't achieve much that is why he sees it difficult for him to retire.

had he be so happy staying in the Portuguese team he would not have left the country and would not have move to a new society altogether.
We don't know what is in the mind to Ronaldo - but he is not ready to give up his football career

Yeah, and for Messi there's no need to go to the next World Cup. He can already retire at the top, having won everything. Wouldn't make too much sense to go back.

He can now simply get royalties from marketing, TV commercials, etc. Much simpler work and easy money, forever.

you are right on that point - and we will keep discussing  Messi and Ronaldo age for the next four year and the mean while they will be working on their fitness and will look more younger.

Messi will be 38 years old, when the next world cup starts. There is no point for him to play for so long. And it is not like Argentina is devoid of any promising younger players. They have Lautaro Martínez, Paulo Dybala, Ángel Correa and Julián Álvarez. Let Lionel Messi and Ángel Di María pass on the responsibility to these younger players in 2026. The advantage with Argentina is that their younger players are much more experienced when compared to those in the European teams, and doesn't have any problem in undertaking a greater responsibility.  

If I may once more my friend?

Generally, you would be correct that by expanding the data set, the significance of outcomes of statistical analysis will increase. HOWEVER (), we are talking about different stages of a tournament here. This means that the final is a better indicator for the strength of a team because luck decreases with every stage a team manages to pass. Luck maybe gets you from the round of 16 to the round of 8, maaybe also to the round of 4, maaaybe also to the final and maaaaybe also help you win the final. I would say that the luck factor decreases significantly, the further a team makes it into the tournament and the bigger the data set under consideration (meaning the more World Cups you take into account).

There is another important factor to keep in mind, and this is why the final is more significant statistically than the semi-final: the participating number of teams per continent (or association if you will):

AFC (Asia): 4 or 5
CAF (Africa): 5
CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean): 3 or 4
CONMEBOL (South America): 4 or 5
OFC (Oceania): 0 or 1
UEFA (Europe): 13
Hosts: 1

The X or Y rule applies when there is an inter-confederation play-off and this time it was Australia vs. Peru, which is why CONMEBOL ended up with only 4 teams at the World Cup 2022.

In summary, yes, both our analyses lead to the result that over the 20 year time span we considered, UEFA was significantly dominant, and taking into account that the significance of the luck factor decreases with every round of the tournament, the numbers I provided are even more telling.

But to round this up and still stay on topic with our discussion, this is how it is exactly going to change for 2026 and you can see that the goal obviously was to decrease the relative dominance of UEFA over all other associations:



If you take the whole World Cup history and compare CONMEBOL vs. UEFA and just look at the champions, one must say that CONMEBOL did a pretty good job!

There it is UEFA 12 to CONMEBOL 10. There were 11 finals where it was CONMEBOL vs. UEFA and out of those 11, CONMEBOL won 8.

Hope this was a bit interesting to read!

Looking forward to the World Cup 2026 now and how all of that plays out. Many people say that the World Cup is too bloated and I kind of agree, but after making this little analysis I must say that I do like the idea for other continents/associations to get a couple more spots.