Pre-match: 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw - December 5, 2025 - 12 PM EDT

“Croatia in the semis, easy as you like” -my English coworker in 2018.

 

This Village People performance is worse than mung.

Don’t google that. You’ll never have a good night’s sleep again.

 

Ok, they’re showing the White House now. Am I allowed to point out the politics in THAT?

 

Never know what can happen with the playoff. Let's go Romania

 

Look let’s be clear. All the top 4 teams are miles better than the test, and should walk their group.

If they can’t win their group as overwhelming favourites that’s their fault, and frankly if you can’t be confident of beating Croatia and Ghana… what shot are you against the other top 3.

Yeah, I’m very confident.

 

They'll be playing almost exclusively in marquee markets, which is interesting. The "patsy" is Panama, but they've recently been the grittiest team in CONCACAF. Thomas Christiansen is their manager, and they're extremely pragmatic and physical (and take full advantage of CONCACAF refereeing). Early this year in our slump, they beat us in literally the last minute of stoppage time on I think their second shot of the night.

 

Don't have to start Messi / give him long minutes until r16

 

Playoff C is pretty unbalanced with Turkiye an Elo of 16th and the other three all in the 40s/50s

 

It's true, Turkey has to get there first.

 

Its not a great draw. But it is 3 teams we can, have and should beat at home.

 

Important note for you guys that like me, look at that bracket beyond the group stage....

Our matchups for runner up, are likely to be easier than our matchups as group winner, which include a 75% chance of drawing:


Canada/Italy Path/Switzerland
or

Ivory Coast/Ecuador/Germany

Or
Senegal/Norway/Iraq path


Who wouldn't prefer Iran or Egypt or New Zealand.

I was afraid of that.

Our knock out matchup in the round of 32 definitely looks far worse as group winner than runner up.

 

well that went well..

just the draw. nothing else.

 

Poch is about to come on live (on Fox) ... he's cautiously optimistic.

Pushed back when Lalas declared the USA should/would be group winners.

Poch: We can't win before we play.

 

So our first group match is set to be low-scoring and cagey. Not ideal, I'd have perferred a high-flying win to get the country excited, but we can have no real complaints with what we drew. Not as cake as it could've been, but nothing as bad as what might've been, either. No worst-case scenarios.

Poch's friendly schedule this year was totally prophetic. Almost too much so. It would've been fun to get some sides we don't know.

 

The Knockout Path just sucks if we are group winner. Immediately a far more difficult game is likely in the round of 32, than if we stumble to 2nd place. SO ANNOYING. The one piece of good news is our R16 matchup aint too bad, Belgium vs somebody on the other side. It could be far worse, i think Belgium is the worst of the non-host seeds for sure.

 

If Turkey goes to Slovakia in the 2nd game (most expected outcome), Turkey is not gonna be a big favorite on the road. Germany lost in Slovakia during qualifying.

It's most likely to be Turkey, but don't write them in sharpie

 

Our path to Final: 3rd place-->Belgium--->Spain--->France/Germany/Ned

 

I still don't understand how that works, honestly. All I know is that if we manage to finish first in the group, we will get a 3rd place team in the SF Bay Area.