Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 81. (Read 66595 times)

Qatar is not a country with a good football culture like Brazil. So for now I think it is still difficult for them to compete at the world cup level. But I see the Qatari government really cares about Qatari football and with their wealth they are really investing in football by hosting the 2022 world cup as well as hosting the AFC 2023. They have also invested in several football training camps there. Qatar will become one of the strongest countries in the world of football but this will take quite a long time because it takes years to build a strong football culture in a country.

If follow developments, this is very unfortunate condition, the conflict that occurs causes everything to be unable to be managed easily and football, which is the sport most loved by everyone, is also affected by the impact of the conflict that occurs.
Whatever it is, I think most people, especially the countries taking part in the World Cup, will definitely agree with it and indeed FIFA must immediately resolve it to be able to create more comfortable situation as time progresses towards the World Cup competition starting in 2026.
We see what will come out of FIFA decision in the future, what is clear is that if it has good intentions for the 2026 World Cup competition, I sure there won't be many people who will be able to dispute it or debate the results of FIFA decision.
Indeed, this is very difficult condition, there will be one party who will suffer loss and indeed there will be majority who will gain so, FIFA must be able to be fair in resolving it, but on the other hand, I think FIFA will get pressure.

If you look at the current FIFA rankings, based on the official FIFA website, Portugal is ranked 6th in the world and 4th in Europe. That is not a small number and it does not make sense to say that Portugal is a small team if you look at their ranking. I wonder why there are some people who say Portugal is a small team in football just because they haven't won any world cups. When they won Euro 2016 they were ranked 8th in FIFA.

If there is a small team that is surprisingly capable of winning the Euros then I think it is Denmark and Greece. I don't think anyone thought they would win the Euros at that time. In my opinion, what makes someone think that Portugal is a small team is because of the high expectations of the public or because they brought in players who are not well-known enough in the big European leagues. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Iraq is a strong problem for the other teams against it, I watched the match they brought and it was pretty good, it's natural for Iraq to be in the position now, this is very difficult for some teams to admit but indeed Iraq is one of the teams that is very strong from several other Asian teams in Group F and is at the top of the group.

Meanwhile the Philippines is not so good at getting points this is very difficult for the Philippines, I think there needs to be more improvement because the Philippines only got 1 point from the draw while from the rest of the match it suffered a very sad defeat, meanwhile Vietnam which was the second strongest candidate can be defeated by Indonesia in several matches, and only 6 points so far, and only in 3rd place, and it was unexpected that Indonesia who got much better development this season because they could get the second place group champion which led them to enter the next round of this qualification, with a total of 10 points.

Although Asians do well in cricket, Asian countries do not perform very well in football. A few countries from Asia qualified for the FIFA World Cup and most of the countries that played in the main stage of the World Cup were eliminated from the group stage. Only Japan and South Korea performed slightly better than other Asian teams, still qualifying for the quarter-finals was the highest achievement.

2022 World Cup was hosted by Qatar and they invested huge amount of money there. Qatar invests a lot of money behind football and yet their team does poorly in the World Cup tournament because Qatar does not have players in its pipeline like the big European teams who can support the team. As in Brazil, football is constantly being produced in Qatar, but not like this, that is why Qatar cannot perform significantly well in the World Cup

China saved by Thailand... anyone seriously think they could qualify for 2026?

Oh and anyone read about the unions all getting together against FIFA for the expanded games format? I don't like FIFA but they actually only account for roughly 10% of all football games -- even fewer than club competitions outside national leagues. Given that FIFA spends in developing football in emerging economies, I feel like it's slightly unfair to lay the blame on them while ignoring the extreme shortcomings of AFC, AFCON, CONCACAF and even UEFA, no? Or national leagues for the not-brilliant idea of playing national cup ties abroad (looking at you RFEF).


I did not! I'm not in the best of places at the moment for this tournament for live betting. Real life is so busy, and then I'll be in a completely different timezone at the end of the group stages, so it's not an ideal situation to be doing live bets ;

However, MD1 isn't even over yet and we've already seen two such instances where you could bet on Albania, and then Poland with really great odds prematch, and then bet on the fav after conceding.

I didn't see Italy odds after Albania's 1st-minute goal but Netherlands were immediately 2/1, before settling 10 seconds later to 16/10 (boosted) after Poland's opener. In hindsight, they were lucky to win but you would have to say with their lineup, scoring 2 and not conceding any more was very tempting.

Quotes definitely become immediately unreasonable -- it's not easy to catch it on live but it has definitely happened for me before

Iraq performance is appreciable and I encouraged that team to play good and qualify for World Cup. Now ,Iraq qualify for the third round . Iraq team position is very strong and it is at the top in group stage. In last match,I enjoyed every moment of match and match was interesting and nobody felt bore . Vietnam lacked in many things and Vietnam did only one goal and out of the third round . Iraq position is  third  in a group stage and points of Vietnam are 6 but Iraq points are 18 and at the top of rank. Indonesia team performance is best in this round and they will qualify for 3rd round easily . In last match Indonesian team score was 2 and Phillipines score was 0 goal . Phillipines are out of the qualifier round.

Protugal doesn't have a weak squad, they are one of the best team in Europe when it comes to international football. If they were a weak team, they wouldn't have won the Euro 2016. No weak team can win the Euro's. It's laughable when Portugal is doing well and winning trophies they attribute it to Ronaldo heroic. But when they are playing poorly and unable to win the world cup they become a small team and it's now team efforts. I remember when Ronaldo and his Portugal team mates won the Euros in 2016, it became a one main show, it was the talk of the media mostly Ronaldo fans were fueling that Lionel Messi can't win international trophy. There were several talks on how Ronaldo single handedly won the trophy for his country.

Years later Argentina won the Copa America and the world cup and suddenly it now turned out that Portugal is not a big team and Ronaldo can't single handedly win the world cup for his country. It's really ironic, I wonder when the fact will be acknowledge that Ronaldo is over hyped and he is not as good as many thinks he is. All great players in history always win the world cup. So Ronaldo should try his best, do his magic and win the world cup with Portugal if he is to be considered among the greatest to have ever played the game. Portugal has the squad capable of winning the world cup, they are no small nation when it comes to international football.

Nobody can have it all and that is nature which we can neither fight or control, he ahs been able to win many othe prestigious trophies and he alone can not single handedly get his country to win the world cup, if he could have, there are other factors that needed to play out which isn't there, they need to have a very good squad behind him to give him that covering and enablement to win the trophy so if he has been able to win other prestigious trophies aswell as personal award, I feel he's gotten enough already to really wori too much about not winning the world cup in his career.

The world cup been amongst the trophies a player was able to win in the history of his career brins about a whole lot of prestige which I'm very much aware of but it still doesn't mean that a good player who happens to hail from a country who's got a poor squad will be blamed for not been able to win such a prestigious trophy, to win the world cup, the team needs beyond the strength of a single player to be able to pull that that through so he shouldn't in anyway be blamed, he did his utmost best but wasn't just in the right team, I believe if it were to be like club football where players could be bought, Portugal would have done just that.

So you are saying that the manager should prioritize Ronaldo happiness or personal ambition over the teams objective? Ronaldo wasn't being helpful to the team at that time, he wasn't playing good. He didn't fit into the tactics and the coach had to do what is necessary for the entire Portugal team and their country. I laugh when people say after everything Ronaldo has done for the team or country. What exactly has he done for them, are they not paying Ronaldo match allowances and bonuses? Is Ronaldo playing for free? The coach is the one that's going to be blamed and possibly face being sacked if he doesn't make the right decision in the bigger stage. Ronaldo wasn't the only player that was benched in the Portugal squad during the last world cup, why should he be given a prefrrencial treatment? He is just like every member of the squad and that's the hard truth. There is nothing disrespectful there, he is doing his job and the coach was also doing his job by looking out for the team. If he was playing good there was no way the coach would have benched him.

I would much rather see the world cup without it being infected with politics. Every single sporting event now needs to have an opinion about every single geopolitical conflict...

The participants of these sporting events have most probably nothing to do with these geopolitical events, and they just want to participate in a competition.

It would suck to train all your life for something and when it's your time to shine you cannot participate because the government in the place you happen to be a citizen decided something which you have zero control of.

Hopefully FIFA can set the same rules, without making distinctions or in other words without using double standards. It is reported that FIFA has received several proposals regarding the request to suspend the Israeli national team from any competition, and will follow up and decide on them next July at an extraordinary congress.

If FIFA does not act in the same way towards Israel, their image will be bad in the eyes of the world, and of course the Russian national team will be the disadvantaged here. I think everyone understands this, without exception, sometimes we need to open our eyes, to see the situation fairly. Of course, football which has nothing to do with politics, but what it did to Russia, FIFA should also do to Israel.

Indonesia team won due to great performance. The Indonesia team players were in good form and they won easily. Ramadhani did first goal of the match and he did brilliant goal and he bent the match to their sides. He did goal in the  56 minutes and Haye did second goal of the match  but Philippines team could not do any single goal. I think Philippines state is not interested in Football and they didn't gave opportunity to big  players to play in this tournament.  Phillipines state should work on this and they should select team on merit and if things did properly ,they will play in the  Cup , otherwise they will be eliminated. Congratulations to Indonesia team to show great performance . The total shots of Indonesia team were 20 and Shots of Philippines were only 7.

I have heard that FIFA is still not certain about the participation of Israel in the World Cup 2026. I saw somewhere that they are seeking "expert help" or something like that about this. I do not understand how they can just directly say that Russia is not going to participate in the World Cup but hesitate about Israel. They are literally committing genocide. And somehow FIFA is not concerned about it as much as they were concerned about Russia invading Ukraine. Ukraine actually have the support of the USA and other big countries and also getting support in terms of military aid and other aid as well. However the Palestinian people are being deprived of basic human rights. Israel is literally killing children and civilians by targeting children and civilians. It's not like they are trying to kill military personnel and the civilian deaths are just the casualties. No, they are literally targeting and killing babies. But for some reason, FIFA is not sure what to do.

Regards

Duke

I think we should wait for the Euro Cup to pass to judge Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo's performance... The Euro Cup is almost starting and coach Roberto Martínez has already released Portugal's squad list for the competition (almost a month ago ). My opinion is that with the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo on the list, the Portuguese team is one of the favorites for the title, alongside Spain, France, England and Germany (obviously).

Even though his physical performance is still admirable for his age, let's see how Ronaldo will perform in this championship and then judge his possible performance at the 2026 World Cup.

But, not only Cristiano Ronaldo lives in Portugal.... we must also honor great players from this team who are prominent in world football such as Rúben Dias, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva too.

I agree with you. The Argentine national team is much better than Portugal if we look collectively. Argentina managed to be one of the best teams in the world for several years but Portugal was inconsistent with their ranking. Currently Argentina is in first place and Portugal is in sixth place. But if Messi and Ronaldo didn't play for both teams I think Argentina could still maintain their top 10 ranking and Portugal would probably be around the top 20 or top 30.

I disagree with this, the Argentine national team has been competing for titles with consistency since the 2014 World Cup, it has been among the best on the planet for 10 years... The Portuguese national team is an ordinary team, with only Cristiano Ronaldo really standing out... Not even at the Euros at the beginning of the 2000s, what I consider to be the best Portuguese team of all time didn't achieve much... and there was Figo, Rui Costa, several legends.

Ronaldo’s chances to me are not that difficult or impossible as you put it out. You early are rating the Argentina national team way ahead of the Portuguese national team. You might disagree with me but looking at the individual players and their stats in both squad I don’t see the two countries far apart from each other. The thing about the Argentines that yes gets them above everyone else even after winning the World Cup is their ability to play their heart out In every of the tournament’s games, giving their all.

The Portuguese national team to me aren’t that competitive minded or maybe I will say they don’t have the cohesion to take out any team like the Argentine national team, most of their players are usually those playing for personal glory and nothing more. But Should we compare them both in terms of individual performances then both aren’t far apart, if at all Portugal isn’t even better than Argentina because without Messi they seems to be a mediocre team

Did you manage to pull off this trick today in the Italy - Albania game? This was exactly the case, I did not watch the quotes live, but it is obvious that in the first 20 minutes they made two sharp reversals.
And yes, I have long noticed that immediately after a goal is scored, the quotes jump to an unreasonable height and there are literally a couple of minutes to take advantage of this, then they level out.

Actually Portugal is not a bad team. However, they cannot be compared with other teams like Argentina. Portugal surprisingly managed to become champions of Euro 2016 by beating France in the final. At that time they were the underdogs and no one expected them to beat the French superstar team in the final. But if we talk about the world cup level I think Ronaldo's chances of winning the world cup are almost impossible. It would be a shame if Ronaldo ended his career without getting a world cup but in my opinion Ronaldo and Messi are the best in football at the same level.