Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 89. (Read 66977 times)

If Real Madrid are interested in signing him again after his contract expires, he could serve Real Madrid for a few more seasons.  Instead of ending his managerial career with Real Madrid in 2026, it looks like he will take on a new challenge. He can take charge of the Brazilian national team before the 2026 World Cup, and if he takes charge of the Brazilian national team that has won the World Cup five times before the global tournament, Brazil can dream of winning the World Cup for the sixth time under his leadership. Now 2024-2025 are still enough time to wait and see what happens in the near future. Since the World Cup has not been held on the American continent for a long time, this tournament will certainly hold more surprises than what happened in Qatar during the last tournament.

You're right, but at least they have a focus, they have an objective, they are following it because they know that this is the best way for their football to grow, I do want to see the football of those countries, and I don't know why this is the trend now, because football is the king of sports and even with all these things there are many children who want to play football all the time, for now the Copa America is coming, the Euro Cup is coming and this is something that can greatly change the mentality of all the teams that are going to face each other, and so it will be seen and they will adjust what needs to be adjusted, that's why I think the next World Cup is promising.

Basically, the players who can join and take part in competitions when they are with European teams are great players with skills that are qualified to have career in European football, apart from that they will follow the very good style of playing European football.
In fact, this is one of the advantages for several countries where players can join European team, there is better experience and the quality of playing skills improves.
But if we talk about competitions like the SPL which are starting to bring in European players, this will actually only increase the quality of the competition itself because can see that not all of them are local players, but there are lots of foreign players there.
Only thing is to be able to create great players and allow them to be able to play with European teams, I believe it is much more dominant for every country to have great players in their national team.

It been long time but there is still no record showing the success of any of the national teams from Asia who can survive for long time in the World Cup, those who qualify are always eliminated quickly and easily.
But I also hope and am quite sure that in the future there will be national team from Asia that will be able to prove that they can perform very well at the World Cup.

Saudi League is having good prospect for the Asian soccer but still it's not easy to have things as you required in just few years it's a process of decades and this need patience and strong strategy with good funding as well which is not possible for the all countries even Saudi Arab and few more Gulf region countries can do this all but many others are having no facilities for this all which is the biggest problem for them.
In SAARC region which is most populated region we are having soccer at his worst with nothing good is happening, and they are also having no structure and funds for doing anything for the improvement of this game in other region with Japan, Korea and China are doing good job, and they can keep things at his best which is positive but still its difficult and challenging situation for the soccer to have strength and good future.

I agree with you. The quality of Asian players playing in local leagues is lower than European teams. But currently I see that several Asian leagues such as the SPL have started trying to bring in European stars even though they are still veteran players. I think the presence of players who play in European leagues will also help improve the level of Asian teams. They can learn tactics and details about European football. Even though we still can't match the European level, I am sure that in the next few years there will be an Asian team that can go further in the world cup.

The truth is that the quality of football in most Asian countries is too low to compare to that of their European counterparts and that's why European teams tends to easily beat Asian teams whenever they meet each other. Many Asian players now plays football in the top league in Europe but the majority of players who make up their respective national teams are mostly locally based players which is why their teams style of play is always lesser than their European counterparts.
Unlike Asia, some of the top African national teams are very strong and have the needed quality of players to match their European counterparts but because of poor management if the African national teams, they're always not matching with their European counterparts. In the last FIFA World Cup tournament,  an African managed to reach the semi final of the competition which was the first in the history of the competition

But it is still not  like they would play an important role at the World Cup. Who are the most relevant candidates? It is maybe Japan, South Korea, but any other team doesn't really have a chance to make it far in the World Cup let alone winning it. It's more that some of them might be averagely competitive, but not someone to be taken seriously to take it all the way to the final.

But in this case even Brazil might be a candidate that can't be counted into the inner circle of favorites. Interesting times ahead though and for now we'll see what the European Championship brings first.

A reason why he looks a lot older than he is, is because of his habit of smoking. My guy loves to smoke. Even at the early stages office managerial career, You actually smoke in the field. It is only after FIFA said that you cannot be smoking when a match is going on or is broadcasted, that he stopped smoking in the field and now he chews gum. If he did not smoke or even had given up smoking 10 years ago, he would have looked more younger. But anyway, let's talk about his retirement.

If he is able to win the Champions League final, it is not going to be a bad moment to retire. The guy has actually achieved a lot in his career. So we should not have any problems if he actually wants to retire. We also have to remember that even though he is not that old, he is not that young as well. I understand that a lot of coaches are older than him and still coaching. But at the end of the day, it is up to him if he wants to retire or not. and whatever his decision is, we should respect his decision.

I also see that Asian teams have succeeded in developing well and they will no longer just be dark horses in the 2026 World Cup. Several Asian countries use coaches from Europe and several countries such as Arab countries are investing heavily in the league to ensure competition. become more competitive.

South Korea made it to the semifinals of the 2002 world cup. But it was a controversial semifinal and there were rumors that the then FIFA president Sepp Blatter was involved in a scandal with the country hosting the world cup so that South Korea qualified for the semifinals. At least for me, no Asian team has managed to qualify for the semifinals. Maybe we will see it at the 2026 world cup.

Talking about Asia, they have many good players there, for example, you said about Iran and Iraq, there are many talented players there but just like Brazil, they don't pay attention to these talents while in some other countries like South Korea and Japan, they tried much more to have better coaches and develop their teams.
On the other hand, some Arabian teams like Saudi Arabia and UAE invested too much money in their team and they even bought foreign players and gave them citizenship to play for them in Qatar but this still couldn't help them a lot.
I guess the only achievement for the Asian team in the World Cup was in the 2002 World Cup when they were in the semi-final game.

Well, I personally see these teams as very strong. Saudi Arabia is a team that surprised me a lot in Qatar. The truth is that they beat the world champions and that is something that not everyone does. It would have been easy if Saudi Arabia had Maintained the level they played against Argentina, at least they would have reached the semi-finals. But of course, in football, despite everything, experience plays a very important role and that is something they don't have in the World Cup. We have all seen that Arab teams reach a certain point and don't go beyond that. I am very excited about the World Cup in the United States because we will see teams from all continents demonstrating an impressive level of football.

Only funding is not ok these countries needed to have something extraordinary if they want to compete with the biggest countries even I have been feeling these both countries are having good potential in talent and in funding as well but still this need strong management and solid strategy which will bring good system, and then they will be able to create good number of jobs as well which will help them and having sponsors and taking huge funding is never been issue as they are having the good number of big companies which are looking for doing something in these countries.
China doing good work with India need some central command which help them and also their media which is bounded by cricket it's also to work on this which will bring youngsters in this game and surely this all will be give them good return of their investment I agreed as these are not able to invest like Qataris and Saudis.

Yes, I agree that a huge funding is needed from these teams to actually make football very popular in their country. In my understanding football is still a very popular sport in these countries. It's just that the kids love to play football. But there is no incentive for them to actually take football as their profession. In India, cricket is literally the better sport to play. And if you are selected to play in the IPL, you do not have to worry about anything anymore. China is definitely a lot better than India in football. But probably they are just not that worried about getting better in football. Or maybe they cannot afford to spend so much money like the Saudis or the Qataris.

In fact, there are several Asian players who play in Europe's top leagues, such as most South Korean and Japanese players. But there are still many of their players who come from domestic leagues at different levels. But if you look at the history of the world cup I think Asia and Africa are at the same level even though Africa looks better. If we ignore South Korea, which managed to qualify for the semifinals with controversy, then the Asian teams have only managed to reach the last 16 and none have yet made it through to the semifinals. From what I read it says Morocco was the first African country to make it to the semifinals and they had no controversy.

He is too young to retire if you ask me, he does look older than how old he is, dude is 64 years old and looks ten years older than my father who is at the same age, feels like he is retiring way too early. If he stays at Real Madrid for another 10 years then I would understand, but if he plans on retiring at 66 years old as a manager, I feel that is way too early for such a manager to retire, feels like he should probably consider retiring a bit later. That is of course not something I would assume would be that easy.

It is going to be quite difficult for him to stop considering he will probably get bored after a while and he will have offers endlessly all the time from clubs all around the world, so I do not think that he will retire.

Then you know and you have more information about the Asian countries. Asian countries were mostly trying to hire the coaches from the European countries to develop their teams and get improve to have better performance in the next season. For example, you mentioned South Korea when they were using Guus Hiddink as their coach and we saw the amazing results from this team.
Now I think the Arabian countries are even investing and trying harder than before which means maybe we can see the teams like Saudi Arabia have better performance in the 2026 World Cup.

I come from Asia and all your opinion trues how difficult reach the higher level in FIFA World Cup every edition moment, except on most controversial FIFA World Cup 2002 when South Korea under Guus Hiddink as manager success qualifying until semifinal round and next edition never see yet the Asian national team reach to semifinal or final phase. I think the development of Asian teams not easy because dominance of their players only existing with their domestic league, difference how Argentina achievement last edition world cup success become the winner most of them played with top European teams.

Its difficult if Asian players existing in their domestic league only will reach higher level in World Cup every edition moment, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems still weakness national team when playing in World Cup and most highest their achievement qualified to 16 of round only.

For me this is good joke as you don't know why Europeans provided more slots in FIFA World Cup because look like you have no idea how things are working around, and you are doing things just by own mind with never check about the competitiveness of this region in soccer and their huge investments which are not paying them good return they are having one of the best and strongest system in soccer which is helping them, and they are also having things which are helpful for them in all aspects here in Asia just personal egos and hate is doing things badly down.

In last few years, we are having good development in African region which is helpful for the game and them with this all we can expect better things even still it's not easy because they need more work to do for the game and development of the players which are already doing impressive work and having their mark into UEFA region which is impressive for them and their all system.

Asia is one of the most populated continent with having very interesting geopolitics, but sadly they are never been had anything for the development of this game soccer which is really sad for the billions of peoples those are living here and watching soccer without their own hero's and this all is happening just because of having not strong central sports organization which bring some strict rules like we have in UEFA and other continents which are helping them for development even now African region is having amazing development, and they are doing impressive work for this game and players development.

We have China and India which both are having just one or two appearances in FIFA World Cup which is matter of shame and few countries which are doing good but mostly are not working for the domestic leagues which are also important for the development of the game with recently we have huge investments from Qatar and Saudi Arab, but these are also not helpful for the game they are doing these things for the own interest I have strong feeling this is never been easy to have good development for this game in this region in near future it's going to take time like decades.

Yes, that because several Asian countries with good sports development, especially football, really want to be able to compete for tickets to take part in the World Cup, this is really big competition and something everyone has been waiting for.
Just being able to enter the group phase gives happiness and also sense of pride in abilities, even though in the group phase there are definitely many difficulties that result in them being eliminated.
We will see fierce competition when we enter the third round and in the third round it will be filled with the strongest from several Asian countries such as Qatar, Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.
They are the strongest and always dominate every Asian competition, perhaps for the qualifying round the Asian zone will still be dominated by them and for the determination it will definitely be very tight competition.