Dalit
Elite Member
They are good, but not world class.
FIFA World Cup 2026
- Thread starter ghazi52
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They are good, but not world class.
Dalit
Elite Member
This Messi is a shady character for sure.
Dalit
Elite Member
I am a big Ronaldo fan, but I have to agree here. If Ronaldo doesn't perform changes will have to be made. Nevertheless excellent work from Congo.
Musings
Administrator
He was way off the pace. Love him - brilliant player and great for the sport but looked poor yesterday...... maybe still worth it as an impact sub or last 15 min......
PakAl
Elite Member
He is 41 years of age, he just doesnt have the pace anymore, more like a poacher type of striker. If he gets the ball he will score, he's still elite. I would bench him, start Ramos, bench Silva aswell and start Conceicao, Leao or Trincao, bring Ronaldo on after 70 minutes.
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Hamartia Antidote
Elite Member
Watandar
Trusted Member
These europeans really know how to manipulate you folks and make $$$.
Master Chief
Trusted Member
Happy for Ghana. Remember how close they were to reaching the semifinals back in 2010 as the first African team in history. Until Morocco did it back in 2018 as the first Arab and African country in history.
Panama not doing bad though. Impressive from such a small country.
In general international football, which this World Cup has so far confirmed, is becoming more and more even. It is rare to see a huge gap in quality as once was the case.
The outliner so far has been the Germany-Curacao match but that was hardly a surprise. Curacao has a population less than 150.000 and I read that all of their players, except for one of them, were born in the Netherlands.
The only thing, having a cousin attending the World Cup in the US, that I think is unnecessary for a country like the US, is the pricing of not only the tickets (FIFA probably have a say here) but everything from transportation, hotels, food etc.
It is opportunistic, cheap and quite frankly desperate to have to pay 100 dollars for transportation from Manhattan to Metlife Stadium. Public transportation (subway) no less.
Which is a shame as the US is not an overly expensive country to travel within and dine in etc.
A lot of football fans from across the world have been prevented from attending for those reasons. Other reasons is the US denying them visas etc.
I don't recall (even though this was before my time) this being the case in 1994 from those who experienced that tournament.
Did you see the final seconds of the Uruguay-KSA game? The referee (European referee - Slovenian if I recall), allowed the play to continue for 1.5 more minutes than the added time showed (all during Uruguay possessions and attacks) while he blew the whistle in the middle of a counterattack where KSA had the ball and we had numerical advantage (3 against 1). Potentially a goalscoring opportunity. There were never any stops in play before this action - meaning no fouls whistled, no throw ins, corner kicks etc. to be taken. He could easily have allowed play to continue until we finished our attack either by losing possession or potentially scoring. Instead he blew the whistle beforehand. Not sure this would have occurred the other way around, I am to be honest.
It was worse than I recall. Some American made a Youtube video about it already with quite a lot of views.
As you can see he all alone and could have potentially had an 1 against 1 goalscoring opportunity. And this is an attacking (traditional number 9 - Al-Hamdan) so high likelihood of a goal.
Not sure if this would have occurred for France, the US, England etc.
Sometimes referring bias is clear and obvious and more often than not the lesser ranked/underdog team is at the receiving end. Seen it across many sports.
On the other hand if you are a host country you can rob yourself into a semifinals like South Korea did back in 2002 after cheating/bribing the referees against Italy and Spain. Look up those scandalous/blatantly corrupt decisions for South Korea.
BTW there was a lot talk about Qatari bribes etc. The reality is that even Germany did bribes in order to ensure that they would host the FIFA 2006 World Cup. I don't recall the media frenzy in this regard.
German football bosses fined over 2006 World Cup scandal
A German court has fined the country's football association over a scandal connected to the hosting of the 2006 World Cup. The trial had been going on for more than a decade.www.dw.com
The media only tells you what they want to. Same goes for the general agendas.
Take Israel as an example. If any country in the world, not named Israel, was doing what they have been doing for decades, they would long ago have become completely sanctioned and become a pariah. Instead they have never been banned from even FIFA, once. Let alone Eurovision and other nonsense that does not really matter at all. So you can imagine about the rest.
Good point about pricing. I read that some states have taken the decision to introduce cheaper or even free transport for fans on the day of a game. Mamdani also undertook some money saving initiative for the fans in NY (sorry i dont recall the details). Perhaps some lessons are being learnt as the tournament gets underway?
Also, I agree that Qatar came in for a whole load of bizarrely and sometimes obsessively negative press 4 years ago on all sorts of issues, and yet we see similar problems in every world cup including this one, which are quietly overlooked! The concern you raise is valid.
Master Chief
Trusted Member
Erm sorry. CR7 hate should attract an immediate thread ban. @mods??
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