World Cup 2026 Thread

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I like having more teams in the WC. But this 3rd place finisher thing is already fixing to be controversial. Algeria and Austria may enter the game tonight knowing they can draw and both advance. If there is an outcome either way, the loser is out in favor of Iran most likely. 

They are both incentivized to play passively. It renders teams playing at the same time less relevant than it was and opens the door for another Disgrace of Gijon

[OldSchoolSnapper]

22 hours ago, adambr2 said:

My guess is they get past Bosnia by two goals and their WC ends in the round of 16 against Belgium.

I'd put them about 50/50 against this iteration of Belgium on their home field. A win in that game would separate this WC from "they beat who they should have" and move into the territory of real progress for the national team, that they could beat a strong program in a real game. 

They'd have Spain in the quarters, so that would be it barring a Miracle on Turf.

[endaround]

Didn't pay that much attention until now, but wow that bracket for Argentina is a probably as easy as you can get to the semi-finals. Not to say there aren't decent sides there but compare that to a France-Germany in the round of 16 and the winner of that likely facing the Netherlands. 

[Jimbo]

On 5/31/2026 at 9:11 PM, Jimbo said:

I have tickets for the R32 match at Arrowhead on July 3.  I'm thinking the price will go up after the matchup is determined.  Plus, I prefer to have tickets in hand *now* instead of waiting.

 

Ugh!  No Renaldo.  No Fernandes.  I wanted to party with the Portuguese.  However, the Colombians look fun as well.  Looked like they had the better team.

 

[adambr2]

Paraguay over Germany is a pretty massive upset. We put up 4 goals on that team. Frankly, they never even looked competitive in that game. 

[Samurai Bucky]

21 hours ago, adambr2 said:

Paraguay over Germany is a pretty massive upset. We put up 4 goals on that team. Frankly, they never even looked competitive in that game. 

I thought the Morocco over Netherlands was a mild upset until I looked at the FIFA rankings.  Goes to show I don't know as much as I thought I did... LOL

https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/men

[adambr2]

Senegal, talk about choking.

[Samurai Bucky]

59 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Senegal, talk about choking.

No doubt.  I was watching the end on Telemundo and saw the PK at 120'.  Why did they say it was a PK?  I would have expected the VAR to let it go.  Probably a big debate on Belgium winning.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Soccer refereeing and rules are stupid, I'm sorry - that red card on Balogun after all the physical nonsense not called for 65 minutes is a complete joke

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Atrocious night of officiating even outside that laughable red. I really liked their chances to beat Belgium in Seattle. Without Balogun that's very hard to see happening. He is by far their most dynamic goal scorer. Just an awful thing to happen on a truly terrible piece of officiating.

[adambr2]

4 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Atrocious night of officiating even outside that laughable red. I really liked their chances to beat Belgium in Seattle. Without Balogun that's very hard to see happening. He is by far their most dynamic goal scorer. Just an awful thing to happen on a truly terrible piece of officiating.

Well, it’s not going to be 10 on 11 like it was for the last 30 minutes. I still think they’ll have a chance. 

With that said - any shot/grounds for a successful appeal for Balogun to make him available for Belgium?

 

[Fear The Chorizo]

12 hours ago, adambr2 said:

Well, it’s not going to be 10 on 11 like it was for the last 30 minutes. I still think they’ll have a chance. 

With that said - any shot/grounds for a successful appeal for Balogun to make him available for Belgium?

 

I don't think so on the appeal - from what I understand once the VAR indicated to the referee he had to review the play, his call based on the stills/slow mo footage VAR sent him is final and not able to be appealed....which is a complete and total joke because I'm certain the VAR footage was just the incidental cleat to back of leg at 1000 frames a second, making it look awful.

One of those instances where VAR / technology is really bad for the actual game being played.  To go from no foul called on the play to a Red card costing a key player the next game is atrocious.  The mistake is VAR even suggesting the review to the referee.

I've always hated the offsides call in soccer, too - I get why the rule is in place, but I think there needs to be a modification where any time the ball is played from within the penalty area (18 yard box), there is no offsides.  Either that or in this era of VAR monitoring offsides needs to be changed to a player having any piece of himself onside when the ball is played be ok instead of any piece of himself offside taking goals off the board.  The soccer field is too large and services into the box coming from too far away for players to get penalized for aggressive and well-timed runs just because opposing defenders find themselves moving the wrong direction at the right time.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

12 hours ago, adambr2 said:

 

With that said - any shot/grounds for a successful appeal for Balogun to make him available for Belgium?

 

.1%

I'm guessing they don't even file any kind of injunction. Because it's FIFA the most likely way he'd play is if Trump directly bribed them.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

1 minute ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I've always hated the offsides call in soccer, too - I get why the rule is in place, but I think there needs to be a modification where any time the ball is played from within the penalty area (18 yard box), there is no offsides.  Either that or in this era of VAR monitoring offsides needs to be changed to a player having any piece of himself onside when the ball is played be ok instead of any piece of himself offside taking goals off the board.  The soccer field is too large and services into the box coming from too far away for players to get penalized for aggressive and well-timed runs just because opposing defenders find themselves moving the wrong direction at the right time.

I like offsides but a simple change that would be consistent with the rest of its rules (ball must be completely out, ball must be completely over the line) would just be making it that the entire player has to be offsides, not his finger tip.

[Fear The Chorizo]

2 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I like offsides but a simple change that would be consistent with the rest of its rules (ball must be completely out, ball must be completely over the line) would just be making it that the entire player has to be offsides, not his finger tip.

Agreed - now lines officials almost automatically throw up the offsides flag on most goals being scored, almost after the fact, and then have VAR see if one of the goal scorer's cleats has gone past the closest defender's fingertip who isn't even marking him.

[adambr2]

Yeah, it’s been a real buzzkill when goals are scored, can’t even really celebrate, have to sit there and wait to see if the flag goes up, and then you still don’t know. 

[Samurai Bucky]

2 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Agreed - now lines officials almost automatically throw up the offsides flag on most goals being scored, almost after the fact, and then have VAR see if one of the goal scorer's cleats has gone past the closest defender's fingertip who isn't even marking him.

I like it.  It takes about 2-5 seconds for VAR to call down to the AR.  I would rather have VAR to blame than an AR maybe not seeing something.

The next thing you know, we will be calling for computers calling balls and strikes!  Oh the humanity!

[Fear The Chorizo]

2 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I like it.  It takes about 2-5 seconds for VAR to call down to the AR.  I would rather have VAR to blame than an AR maybe not seeing something.

The next thing you know, we will be calling for computers calling balls and strikes!  Oh the humanity!

I just don't like how the offsides rule has to get interpreted with modern technology - there shouldn't need to be a virtual line across the entire width of the pitch where if any part of an attacking player breaches it at the touch of a soccer ball from 15 yards behind them that it's offsides - and that line moves with any number of defenders who may not even be involved in the play.

IMO that's not in the spirit of why the offsides rule was written in the first place, and it takes away from the game.  I know the reason VAR exists in the first place for soccer is due to terrible calls on those and other plays where human error decided game outcomes inappropriately - but I'd rather recalibrate the interpretation to be the entire player's body having to be offisdes in order for that call to be made, not just a millimeter.  There are too many occasions where a player running towards the goal passes a defender sliding away from the goal, and quite frankly i feel the amount of the time it takes to establish that arbitrary offsides line digitally probably blurs the result even for VAR. 

[GAME05]

So is this equivalent to the Bulls having to play a game without Michael Jordan? Pardon my ignorance, but what level of "Crap, this means we're going to lose" should I have?

[adambr2]

53 minutes ago, GAME05 said:

So is this equivalent to the Bulls having to play a game without Michael Jordan? Pardon my ignorance, but what level of "Crap, this means we're going to lose" should I have?

It hurts. I don’t think it takes them from a coin flip to out of it completely. It’s an 11 on 11 game so there’s a little more dilution. Even short handed 10 on 11 we were 1-0 against Bosnia, not that Bosnia is Belgium. 

It’s not the Bulls without Jordan or even the Packers without Love bad. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

3 hours ago, GAME05 said:

So is this equivalent to the Bulls having to play a game without Michael Jordan? Pardon my ignorance, but what level of "Crap, this means we're going to lose" should I have?

Balogun isn't the best player on the team. I'd say it's the Packers having to beat a team that's maybe a bit better than they are and without Christian Watson.

Balogun, like Watson, gives them something nobody else on the roster does. He's an elite finisher. They were sorely missing that in 2022. His story is pretty interesting. He is a birthright American due to his parents being told they couldn't fly back to London when his mom was 7+ months pregnant due to safety concerns with the pregnancy.

Belgium is a tactically superior team but not as athletic as the US. Their best players are getting up there in years and they will be 4 days off playing a 120-minute game. Seattle is the best city in the country to have a home soccer crowd.

It's a winnable game. But the USMNT has shown to be capable of playing horrible games against bad teams, which Belgium is not. I am hoping the energy in the air carries them through. If the US can dictate the pace and turn this into a footrace, they will win. If they go behind early and Belgium can sit back, it'll be tough. They will probably need another moment from somebody like Freeman, Tillman, Pepi.

If he'd been playing, I really felt like this was going to be a huge night for US Soccer. A mild upset, getting to the quarters, a matchup with powerhouse Spain. It would be a big step forward. I don't see it as a sure thing without Balogun.

[adambr2]

8 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Balogun isn't the best player on the team. I'd say it's the Packers having to beat a team that's maybe a bit better than they are and without Christian Watson.

Balogun, like Watson, gives them something nobody else on the roster does. He's an elite finisher. They were sorely missing that in 2022. His story is pretty interesting. He is a birthright American due to his parents being told they couldn't fly back to London when his mom was 7+ months pregnant due to safety concerns with the pregnancy.

Belgium is a tactically superior team but not as athletic as the US. Their best players are getting up there in years and they will be 4 days off playing a 120-minute game. Seattle is the best city in the country to have a home soccer crowd.

It's a winnable game. But the USMNT has shown to be capable of playing horrible games against bad teams, which Belgium is not. I am hoping the energy in the air carries them through. If the US can dictate the pace and turn this into a footrace, they will win. If they go behind early and Belgium can sit back, it'll be tough. They will probably need another moment from somebody like Freeman, Tillman, Pepi.

If he'd been playing, I really felt like this was going to be a huge night for US Soccer. A mild upset, getting to the quarters, a matchup with powerhouse Spain. It would be a big step forward. I don't see it as a sure thing without Balogun.

If they beat Belgium, you could definitely go into the matchup with Spain relaxed and feeling like you’re playing with house money and content with whatever happens (although a competitive game within a goal would be really nice to see).

I don’t think a lot of casual soccer fans have true context of how hard it to beat a truly superior team in the World Cup. The better team is going to control possession most of the game. It usually takes the perfect storm of events — great goalie play along with numerous near misses and other luck that just keep a game at 0-0 or 1-1 and then keeping it there until late and hoping to be the first one to break through.

Kind of like Cape Verde tying Spain. 

[Samurai Bucky]

To follow up on the last comment by @Fear The Chorizo, I didn't realize what had really happened at the end of the Portugal / Croatia match.  The video highlights I saw didn't have anything about the "chip in the ball" controversy.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49256422/fifa-var-correctly-denied-croatia-equaliser-portugal

Apparently the technology in the ball indicated it was touched by a Croatian player, thereby causing his teammate to be offside.  Here is a picture of the sensor in the ball, I guess:

Fair enough, but I would have liked to have seen the other touches after that.  For example, the touch by the Portuguese player who headed it after that (I know that wouldn't have made #15 onside).  They could also include some touches after that.  That would show how it works in the context of other touches.  Don't simply throw a random graph on there.

I didn't see it live -- did the AR call it offside?

[adambr2]

Cape Verde is still most likely going to lose but this is pretty incredible.

[yourout]

25 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Cape Verde is still most likely going to lose but this is pretty incredible.

That 2nd goal was quite a shot.