2026 FIFA World Cup

[lordstanley]

Even at 3-2 they’re still not going away without a fight. 

[buddha]

"epic game for cape verde...embarassing game for argentina."  - spanish tv

[lordstanley]

Colombia advances to a round of 16 matchup vs Switzerland here on Tuesday. Vancouver welcomes Shakira with open arms!

Edited July 4 by lordstanley

[pfife]

 

[lordstanley]

Nice balance as we head into the round of 16:

UEFA - 7 (Belgium, England, France, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland)

CONMEBOL - 4 (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay)

Concacaf - 3 (Canada, Mexico, USA)

CAF - 2 (Egypt, Morocco)

 

 

[Hongbit]

Some of the funniest people to ever walk the Earth are from Canada.  That should be enough.  

So many countries envison themselves as great sporting nations and frankly it’s very overrated.  Comedy on the other hand is not.  

[lordstanley]

25 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Some of the funniest people to ever walk the Earth are from Canada.  That should be enough.  

So many countries envison themselves as great sporting nations and frankly it’s very overrated.  Comedy on the other hand is not.  

I think I’m hilarious. 
 

Morocco clearly is better than Canada and took control after halftime as expected. But I think 2-0 would have been a fairer score than 3-0. 

[Hongbit]

4 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

I think I’m hilarious. 
 

Morocco clearly is better than Canada and took control after halftime as expected. But I think 2-0 would have been a fairer score than 3-0. 

 

This is cruel word and life isn’t fair.  

I’m thankful for these things since I had over 2.5 total goals.

[monkeytargets39]

Anyone else think Mbappe looks suspiciously like Trevor Thompson?

[Shelton]

On 6/12/2026 at 3:36 PM, Shelton said:

lol, I’ll say it!

Thisnis the classic college football argument about talent vs resume. Yes, whoever makes it there will have the visit beat some good teams. But as you said, it’s the single elimination randomness that gets cracked up by adding an extra round. 
 

I’m also not sure that the third place teams that get through will necessarily be good. By your argument the fact they could t finish top two must mean they suck 😉 

But what I mean is that third place teams are going to be those teams in groups that have a terrible fourth team that goes 0-0-3. You’ve got to some get points ts but not finish in the top two, so it feels like you are going to have the classic third place team that went 1-1-1 and would have been out on GD that gets through. 
 

We’ll see, but the fact we are basically taking the prior World Cup field of 32 and effectively putting them straight into the knockout is bound to cause more early exits for the blue bloods. 

Wanted to revisit this now that we are at the last 16. Indeed, first place Germany lost in the round of 32. Even if they hadn’t, they would be playing right now against France in the round of 16. A matchup of two group winners in the round of 16.

Anyway, we are in the round of 16 with a third place teams alive (for the next few minutes), and a couple first place teams gone.

Maybe the quarterfinals turn out to be decent teams, but the extra round has already cost us two group winners not reaching the round of 16, so it does feel like the knockouts are getting watered down. 

[Shelton]

I will also say that I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. But it is a thing. Is the March madness-ification of the World Cup good or bad? Probably need to see this out.

Edited July 4 by Shelton

[lordstanley]

46 minutes ago, Shelton said:

Wanted to revisit this now that we are at the last 16. Indeed, first place Germany lost in the round of 32. Even if they hadn’t, they would be playing right now against France in the round of 16. A matchup of two group winners in the round of 16.

Anyway, we are in the round of 16 with a third place teams alive (for the next few minutes), and a couple first place teams gone.

Maybe the quarterfinals turn out to be decent teams, but the extra round has already cost us two group winners not reaching the round of 16, so it does feel like the knockouts are getting watered down. 

But 10 of 12 group winners did get to the round of 16. The only three “intruders” into the group of 16 are Paraguay, Canada and Egypt but a few teams like that always seemed to advance out of the group stage in 32-game World Cups too. That said, I would like to see a tweak where the best (most group stage points) 8 of 12 group winners get a bye into the round of 16 and the remaining 8 spots are filled by the 4 lowest 1sf place teams and all 12 2nd place teams playing off against each other. 

[Hongbit]

The World Cup has one main purpose and it isn’t to determine the best soccer nation in world.  That’s secondary.    The Cup is a multi billion dollar product produced by FIFA.   The main goal is maximize revenue.  More countries equals more games equals more sponsorships equals more international TV deals all equaling more money.  
 
Sure, if they ignore the quality of play, eventually it will impact the tournamen,  but it would it would take 3 or 4 bad cups in a row before people started to tune out and impact FIFA’s pockets. 

[buddha]

3 hours ago, Hongbit said:

The World Cup has one main purpose and it isn’t to determine the best soccer nation in world.  That’s secondary.    The Cup is a multi billion dollar product produced by FIFA.   The main goal is maximize revenue.  More countries equals more games equals more sponsorships equals more international TV deals all equaling more money.  
 
Sure, if they ignore the quality of play, eventually it will impact the tournamen,  but it would it would take 3 or 4 bad cups in a row before people started to tune out and impact FIFA’s pockets. 

let's have everyone make the world cup finals.  that would be more revenue and therefore would be better.

a 78 team world cup!

[lordstanley]

1 minute ago, buddha said:

let's have everyone make the world cup finals.  that would be more revenue and therefore would be better.

a 78 team world cup!

How about a 206-country tournament that goes on for two years with games hosted on all continents, with most countries guaranteed at least half a dozen games. 1/4 of those countries can make the final group of 48 and then after a couple more weeks of play it will be cut down to a group of 32. 

[buddha]

8 hours ago, lordstanley said:

How about a 206-country tournament that goes on for two years with games hosted on all continents, with most countries guaranteed at least half a dozen games. 1/4 of those countries can make the final group of 48 and then after a couple more weeks of play it will be cut down to a group of 32. 

how about you turn the 206 team two year tournament into a mild exhibition and let in 103 teams to the final!  moar games moar money!

[Shelton]

12 hours ago, lordstanley said:

But 10 of 12 group winners did get to the round of 16. The only three “intruders” into the group of 16 are Paraguay, Canada and Egypt but a few teams like that always seemed to advance out of the group stage in 32-game World Cups too. That said, I would like to see a tweak where the best (most group stage points) 8 of 12 group winners get a bye into the round of 16 and the remaining 8 spots are filled by the 4 lowest 1sf place teams and all 12 2nd place teams playing off against each other. 

The knockout field is watered down. That’s not really debatable. It’s ok if people don’t mind that or even prefer it. I dislike it.

I would have liked to have seen the discourse had Germany not lost in penalties and gotten the France matchup. Having group winners Germany and France (or any two group winners for that matter) playing each other in the round of 16 feels wrong to me. That’s a systemic problem that by design weakens the quarterfinal field. 

When it’s one of the weaker group winners playing one of the better ones, people don’t really notice the issue (like Mexico vs England).

But yes, it’s a tournament and you gotta win the games. Just like any playoff the purpose is not to make sure that the best team is the one that wins. But I do prefer a setup that does a better job seeding than what we are seeing here. 
 

Selfishly, as a supporter of the US team, it’s great. 

[lordstanley]

I don’t think I watched this game but I recall it being a big deal among my many Italian-Canadian classmates. 

 

[buddha]

if you like drama, its fun.  if you like good soccer, or think this is a tournament where the best teams with the best players are showcasing the game, its been not so great.

the extra round gave us a bunch of teams that arent very good winning bad groups and a bunch of bad teams that should have gone home making it through to the knockout phases.

paraguay against france was an embarassment.  they didnt even try to play.  they just set out to beat france up, cheat the ref (who was horrible), and try to get a french player sent off.  it was a joke of a game.  paraguay more than living up to their reputation (just as their brothers in crime uruguay did earlier).  france were good not to get too upset and lucky none of their players got hurt.

morocco-france should be a semi-final, and morocco-netherlands should have been a quarterfinal.  but alas, one of france or morocco will leave too early, while one of usa-belgium will leave too late.  such is the new reality.

[buddha]

it shows the low reputation the us have that paraguay actually tried to play soccer against them.  they didnt think they had to do their usual BS diving and trying to hurt the other team.  they thought they could beat them at actual soccer.  and it shows how much they us have progressed and how good poch is as a coach that the us blew them away.

[buddha]

5 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

I don’t think I watched this game but I recall it being a big deal among my many Italian-Canadian classmates. 

 

The first world cup game i remember watching was the 86 final.  replete with commercials in the middle of the game...

[Edman85]

On 7/4/2026 at 9:14 AM, pfife said:

 

 

As somebody who has lived in Florida for 17 years now, Cape Verde is where the tropical waves that become hurricanes form.

[Hongbit]

8 minutes ago, buddha said:

if you like drama, its fun.  if you like good soccer, or think this is a tournament where the best teams with the best players are showcasing the game, its been not so great.

the extra round gave us a bunch of teams that arent very good winning bad groups and a bunch of bad teams that should have gone home making it through to the knockout phases.

paraguay against france was an embarassment.  they didnt even try to play.  they just set out to beat france up, cheat the ref (who was horrible), and try to get a french player sent off.  it was a joke of a game.  paraguay more than living up to their reputation (just as their brothers in crime uruguay did earlier).  france were good not to get too upset and lucky none of their players got hurt.

morocco-france should be a semi-final, and morocco-netherlands should have been a quarterfinal.  but alas, one of france or morocco will leave too early, while one of usa-belgium will leave too late.  such is the new reality.

What are you talking about?  This tournament has been a showcase of the best players.  It’s been all stars. 

Besides, rooting for teams is what actual soccer fans do.  There are many more millions of people that only care about the star players and their highlights.  Thats what makes up Infantino’s massive comp plan (at least the legal, above board part).

As for France, they reminded me of the Pistons. Defense focuses on Cade and purposely leaves Daniss and Tobias open and let them keep chucking up low percentage threes.   Not sure where Rabiot and Koné are at the moment but they probably are semi hard dreaming about taking more 20 yard shots.  

I loved every minute of Galarza being a dirty MF and then his acting job that earned a cheap yellow on France.  He may be my new favorite player.  He seems like the kind of guy that would sneak a razor blade in his uniform old WWF style and wait to shiv a dude when the ref wasn’t looking.  Too bad they have VAR nowadays.

[Hongbit]

 

[Hongbit]

Infantino was shown an Orange card!