FIFA World Cup 2026 - Discussion Thread

H_G said:
No, the fight was in the stadium after the defeat, a supporter insulted the coach in front of his son (Yanis), who was in the stand behind the dugout.

This is a recap of the main causes

1- 3 defeats in last 3 games, and two 5 goals conceded in a week. The goalkeeper this games doesn't have experience in a senior tournament. The keeper who played the last WC 2022 and qualification and AFCON was benched.

View attachment 426848

2- "You let as down in 1994 when you was a player, why don't we do it with you in a World Cup ! so it's 1:1"



3- "We warned you about the presence of your son who has nothing to do with the delegation and the preparation for a WC"
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Cheers for clearing that up buddy, had no real background 👍
 
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rockstrongo said:
Got a banger on right now with France v Senegal.
I had Spain as winner before yesterday...
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You still might get it right with Spain being overall winner. I mean Saudi beat Argentina who went on to become the world cup winners.

Yeah I just watched France Senegal. Very entertaining. If only Senegal scored in the first half, it could have been a different story. France quality shine through in the second half though and saw some insane passes and what a strike by Mbappe!
 
PES4eva said:
You still might get it right with Spain being overall winner. I mean Saudi beat Argentina who went on to become the world cup winners.

Yeah I just watched France Senegal. Very entertaining. If only Senegal scored in the first half, it could have been a different story. France quality shine through in the second half though and saw some insane passes and what a strike by Mbappe!
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I always have France as a contender,, can go really far
 
Is it me or does Messi look a lot fitter than 4 years ago? It's hard to look beyond France and Argentina again. Spain surely won't be that poor again though. It will be interesting to see Portugal shortly, I can't help but think they'd be better of leaving Ronaldo on the bench to use if needed late on but I can't see that happening because I don't think Martinez is strong enough to do that.

Well, tonight is the night. I've long since given up on expecting anything with England because they inevitably dash your hopes the minute we meet an equal/better team. We're generally a bit of a flat track bully as the saying goes. Hopefully Tuchel will get the best out of them and use Kane to his best with pace running in behind. Not confident with our defence as usual, we tend to get opened up quite easily. I'm tentatively confident we will win tonight though but I'm also prepared to be disappointed! I'll never write the ageless Modric off from producing something. I'm not sure if there's some unwritten law that we have to face Croatia at least once in every tournament but it seems that way even though we probably haven't.
 
Well that was the most enjoyable England game I've seen in about 20 odd years! I still worry about our defence and I think that may catch us out in the end but we certainly have some firepower. Time will tell how good/bad the Croatia team is, like England they had a pretty easy qualifying group but I've got to be encouraged with that, particularly that spell after half time when their keeper somehow kept shot after shot out.

Elsewhere Portugal surely have to bench Ronaldo?
 
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mattmid said:
Elsewhere Portugal surely have to bench Ronaldo?
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You can think I am biased (see my profile pic haha), but I believe Portugal has so many issues that go well beyond Ronaldo: the Portuguese team was static, played sterile possession, and almost every player looked uninspired. Setting up a match like this, especially against a team parked in defence, is truly disgraceful imo.
As for CR7, he was asked to play as a centre-forward, all alone in the middle of the box with two very wide wingers. Since no balls were coming his way in the first half (due to the team’s extremely sterile build-up play), he dropped deep several times to try and create some combinations (which were often sterile themselves). In the first half, he didn’t receive a single ball worthy of the name. Absolute zero.
In the second half, he stayed much more fixed inside the box and failed to take advantage of two (difficult) chances. At that point, his contribution to the game became truly marginal.
As far as I’m concerned, Ronaldo should always have another striker alongside him, so he has more space and can combine with someone. Instead, he found himself isolated in the middle of the box with two very wide wingers who don’t dribble (at least not yesterday), just waiting for something that never arrived.
I think that the responsibility for what happened yesterday lies almost entirely with the coach and the appalling way he set up the team.
Going back to Ronaldo, we obviously can’t expect him to do what he was doing even four years ago. That said, if he is put in the right conditions to perform at his best, he is still an excellent player despite his age and his now-worn-out body (if only for his talent and goal-scoring instinct). Personally, I would never make him play for 90 minutes, though, but that’s another discussion
 
rockstrongo said:
I always have France as a contender,, can go really far
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Did you watch the England match? We played really well. Croatia proved they still have quality but we were simply better. I think we're very strong in attack and midfield. Our bench is stacked too. The only concern I have is central defence. Stones is obviously a top player but it doesn't seem to work as well as it did when they paired him with Maguire. I'm surprised they didn't bring Maguire based on the great season he had and even if he didn't want to play him he's an absolute menace to bring on in the last few minutes if we needed a goal from a corner.

@mattmid I agree with you about the defence.

I don't agree about Ronaldo. Even if he plays badly you don't bench a player like that because in a split second they are capable of genius to completely change a game.
 
Ronaldo is shadow of himself but Portugal played shit overall not that its only CR7 to blame like haters do on internet.
Messi is obviously still the Goat and does Goat things, best goal scorer of WC ever with Klose..
 
*aLe said:
I don't know if it's for the higher number of teams (even though, in all honesty, it also probably plays its role in making it less interesting) or for what's happening around the World Cup which I find disgusting, at times.
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I thought its my mid-life crisis but this WC is no really interesting as a neutral...
 
PES4eva said:
@mattmid I agree with you about the defence.

I don't agree about Ronaldo. Even if he plays badly you don't bench a player like that because in a split second they are capable of genius to completely change a game.
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It just seems like they play to accommodate him now. Surely you'd build the side around getting the best from Bruno Fernandes?
 
tutu7 said:
You can think I am biased (see my profile pic haha), but I believe Portugal has so many issues that go well beyond Ronaldo: the Portuguese team was static, played sterile possession, and almost every player looked uninspired. Setting up a match like this, especially against a team parked in defence, is truly disgraceful imo.
As for CR7, he was asked to play as a centre-forward, all alone in the middle of the box with two very wide wingers. Since no balls were coming his way in the first half (due to the team’s extremely sterile build-up play), he dropped deep several times to try and create some combinations (which were often sterile themselves). In the first half, he didn’t receive a single ball worthy of the name. Absolute zero.
In the second half, he stayed much more fixed inside the box and failed to take advantage of two (difficult) chances. At that point, his contribution to the game became truly marginal.
As far as I’m concerned, Ronaldo should always have another striker alongside him, so he has more space and can combine with someone. Instead, he found himself isolated in the middle of the box with two very wide wingers who don’t dribble (at least not yesterday), just waiting for something that never arrived.
I think that the responsibility for what happened yesterday lies almost entirely with the coach and the appalling way he set up the team.
Going back to Ronaldo, we obviously can’t expect him to do what he was doing even four years ago. That said, if he is put in the right conditions to perform at his best, he is still an excellent player despite his age and his now-worn-out body (if only for his talent and goal-scoring instinct). Personally, I would never make him play for 90 minutes, though, but that’s another discussion
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Haha (the profile pic comment) I agree it's not just Ronaldo, it was like watching some of the Premier teams, side to side, back and around, repeat, repeat. Then again Martinez failed to get much from the golden generation of Belgium as well didn't he. It just seems to me he'd be much more useful as an impact sub now, 20-30 minutes when defender's are tiring.
 
mattmid said:
It just seems like they play to accommodate him now. Surely you'd build the side around getting the best from Bruno Fernandes?
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It's their first game I don't think it's much of a crisis for Ronaldo to have a bad game every now and then. As you said, there's other players that are effective but I've never been one to want a team to be built around a single player however there are exceptions and those exceptions are probably Ronaldo and Messi even in their old age. Plus it's probably the last time we see them both at a world cup.
 
Cristiano was benched in WC 2022 after the group stage, let's see what will happen during this time
 
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