FIFA World Cup 2026 - Discussion Thread

Beautiful.

It's 1958 & 1962. That's the last time a team has done back-to-back World Cup's (Brazil). Argentina have the chance to change that. For the final, I'll be a neutral. But what a send off for Messi that would be, two World Cups, rewriting history. Would be the ultimate full stop on his international career.

However, the last team to beat Spain in a competitive match? Scotland - March 2023
 
Massive L for England. Have they not learnt anything from rest of the matches in this world cup? Playing only defensive without putting pressure on opposition ends up poorly.

Near the end, these idiots finally started putting pressure on Argentina. If they maintained such pressure even after the first goal, then Argentina wouldn't manage to get this many chances at scoring goals. England really fumbled.
 
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We tried to defend the lead, didn't go for a second and it didn't pay off. A tricky situation to decide to keep on attacking Vs Argentina in a semi final though. We get close in tournaments in recent years but we just can't seem to get over line. Overall they showed heart this tournament. The wait continues...
 
england defeat completely goes to tuchel. having such a good players like sakha, madueke, rashford, etc... he turns his side to complete defensive garbage from 65th minute against argentina.

if england wants something good for its NT, they should get rid of tuchel this night already.
 
Ramon_roman11 said:
As for the game... Argentina seems to be in need of a goal against them to shake things up. This is usually a big problem, except when you can turn it into a... well.. kind of a virtue: you can say we're a dormant team that becomes dangerous once awaken.
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Well played, England. You have been the better team for 65+ minutes. Really like you, lads.
 
Sami 1999 said:
Defending the lead with only 1 goal did not work for anyone in this world cup. On top of that, putting no pressure to opposition only meant they'd end up like Japan. This was a moronic strategy. So frustrating to watch.
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Maybe that strategy worked before, without the hydration breaks, but now teams have time to rethink their play near the end of the half. Even tho, it was a great match by England, its always a fierce rival, wishing you guy at least get 3th place!
 
Dan Burn being your main attacking threat in the last few minutes is peak schadenfreude.

Kane spent more time falling over and whinging at the referee tonight, but the changes from Tuchel were the kind of nonsense we had come to expect under Steve Clarke. Far too early to go that defensive.
 
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Absolutely suicidal to think, okay, we're a goal up, let's retreat all the way to our own goal line and let Argentina have the ball for more than half an hour.

"Who saw that coming?" Everyone on the face of the earth. I cannot believe what I've just watched.

This is entirely on Tuchel and I'm furious. With Southgate, we knew what we were getting - boring, steady, but not ambitious enough football. Tuchel is supposed to have been the antidote to this, and then he absolutely shits his pants like this?

What did he want Pickford to do, build a literal wall? It's the only way this strategy would have worked.

I genuinely already want him sacked... If that's your footballing intelligence, you don't have any.
 
England played the second half as it was the second half of the extra time. Despite Argentina played 2 extra times than them, they looked terrible on ball as they played more minutes than the Argentinian players
 
Chris Davies said:
Absolutely suicidal to think, okay, we're a goal up, let's retreat all the way to our own goal line and let Argentina have the ball for more than half an hour.

"Who saw that coming?" Everyone on the face of the earth. I cannot believe what I've just watched.

This is entirely on Tuchel and I'm furious. With Southgate, we knew what we were getting - boring, steady, but not ambitious enough football. Tuchel is supposed to have been the antidote to this, and then he absolutely shits his pants like this?

What did he want Pickford to do, build a literal wall? It's the only way this strategy would have worked.

I genuinely already want him sacked... If that's your footballing intelligence, you don't have any.
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Tough situation. I was surprised went Gordon went off because he'd have been an ideal player to use on counter attack with his pace.
 
Chris Davies said:
I genuinely already want him sacked... If that's your footballing intelligence, you don't have any.
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I guess the target by the FA is to reach the semi final at least. I do see him in the next Euro, meanwhile he will get a lot of criticism by the media and old players
 
England played a brilliant match and was leading 1–0 when Thomas Tuchel made the worst possible mistake: he dropped the team too deep, leaving them with no way out. Argentina took advantage of the opportunity, equalized, and then completed the comeback.

It was a foolish mistake that cost England its place in the final.
 
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As a neutral spectator, it is absolutely unexplicable to me how England, with all that quality, dropped directly back in their box. That's not how you keep a lead.

Anyway, Messi is just incredible. I think playing at his age, with this intensity, in a match of this level... I've always been more of a CR7 fan, but boy, hats off. What I saw from him in this WC seems stuff that comes from another age.

That said, Spain is an absolute unit. I thought whoever passed tonight would have had very little chances, and I still think they are the favourites by a large margin. Hope for a great show sunday!
 
Maybe the Mexico game conditions affected the physical condition of the English players on long term. Spence (16 mn) and Rodgers who didn't play that game were more better than the rest of the team tonight
 
To be fair and im not trying to be generally derogatory to some of the teams of this World Cup. England have not played anyone who has a full squad of world class players up until this point and scraped through games through moments from Bellingham and Kane.

Going 1-0 up and switching to a back 5 is fine but the way they completely let Messi and De Paul run the show down the side is beyond stupidity.

For all the praise Djed Spence got this tournament, he got found out in this game and in those last 25-30 minutes showed his ability more alike what he is at Spurs but to be fair to him, he had no help at all from any midfielders.

I think what really cost England is that they lost Rice. A man who is one of the hardest working players on the pitch and wouldve helped close down De Paul and Messi. Anderson looked lost without that guy helping him and it cost them dearly. They took Mainoo and didn't play him for a single minute. Jude is not a central midfielder who can help defenders.

Crazy game, I really enjoyed watching it. Argentina are a force, deserve all the praise for coming back again to win the game. I wonder if they will come stuck against an excellent Spain though.
 
Argentina fans, lap this up and laugh your heads off - because this has been me for the last two hours...

 
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Reactions: Tom
"Football's coming home" must wait for another year. Really entertaining game with a great atmosphere. Too bad Tuchel is doing the same tactical mistake as Southgate did in the past. But at least, England had showed a real fight against the defending champions unlike France did vs Spain.

Big congrats to Argentina and all their fans. Now I only hope to see an epic final like 2022 and Lamine Yamal finally showing up against his idol.

FC Bayern said:
It's 1958 & 1962. That's the last time a team has done back-to-back World Cup's (Brazil). Argentina have the chance to change that. For the final, I'll be a neutral. But what a send off for Messi that would be, two World Cups, rewriting history. Would be the ultimate full stop on his international career.

However, the last team to beat Spain in a competitive match? Scotland - March 2023
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If the final goes into the penalty shootout (Spain's unbeaten record remains intact since it's technically a draw), Argentina will win it. They have a good penalty shootout record in the World Cup unlike Spain, while the current Spanish players weren't good at penalties (they couldn't even score a single pen vs Morocco in 2022). As I said above, I expect this World Cup final to be more entertaining like 2022 with goals galore.

France had almost did that back-to-back World Cup in 2022 if it wasn't for Kolo Muani's terrible miss in the last seconds of extra time.

Regarding the Scotland game, Yamal didn't even made a debut just yet, while almost Spanish players weren't quite good before Euro 2024 win.

Last, but not least, European teams are doing great even if they played the World Cup in the Americas. Germany did that in Brazil 2014. I hope Spain will do the same thing this time.

etb10dmk said:
England vs France will be fun to watch...
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Yeah. I was initially rooting for that to be happen in the final, but reality check hits so hard.

Fun Fact: Winning the 3rd place match in the World Cup is a "bad omen" for every teams since they will usually underperform in the next major tournament. We have seen this rare "curse" for the Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium, Turkey, and Sweden. Germany is notable exception; they won the World Cup in 2014 after finishing 3rd twice in a row, but they have been extremely underwhelming since then. France after finishing 3rd in 1986 failed to qualify for the next 2 World Cups (1990 and 1994) before winning it in 1998.
 
H_G said:
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I swear: when Tuchel subbed Gordon out, I was like "uh-oh... don't be stupid...". Well, not sure if he'll keep the job (somehow), but if he loses it, I hope he doesn't get hired (in English territory) ever again, even by an EFL League Two team (no dis).

That being said, Argentina totally deserved it. Besides all ball possession stats, they hit the post TWICE and was all over England the entire game.

rockstrongo said:
Two assists from him, and one of the shots hitting the post was a Messi assist
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Insane stat: Messi has 33 goal contributions (goals + assists) in 33 World Cup games. That's just mind boggling... 🤯
 
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