2026 FIFA World Cup: Friendly matches

RSA signed a friendly match contract with NCA, and then gets buyer's remorse: you get what you pay for.

https://www.goal.com/en-za/lists/ba...-play-football-against-us/bltfb23714695740dc5

Broos expressed frustration over Nicaragua’s lack of ambition in the goalless stalemate, but still saw positives in Bafana’s performance despite the game lacking competitive flow.

“Surely, I think we can be happy about the performance of the team even within today, but if you play against such a negative opponent, then it becomes very difficult.

"Those people came here 90 minutes and defend, kicking the ball in front and then at the end injuries, one minute after the other, so yeah it was all very negative and for us very difficult,” Broos explained in his post-match assessment.​

 

Yeah Nicaragua was a pretty useless opponent to pick.

Did they think they would provide them a test for Mexico just because they are from concacaf ?

Would have been better off playing some random CAF team.

 

The Panama keeper needs to practice penalties (among other things). Lol

 

I do not put too much stock into friendlies but the USA sure looks like a team ready to compete to win their group. Definitely does not look like a team that can finish last place at home.

 

Watched only 1st half, but it was really decent display offensively by USA. Won't tell anything new I guess, but their chances depends a lot on that. If they'll be able to repeat such performance in official matches, they definitely can win the group, atleast beat Australia and Paraguay, who are not that great offensive sides to expose USA's defensive vulnerability, but if they'll open up, USA should punish them. Against Turkiye it might be a different story tho, Turkiye lacks that top notch striker, but if they'll embrace such offensive style of football, which they totally can, it can be a fun to watch game with unpredictable outcome, but with plenty of chances and possibly goals

Germany did what they should against Finland, Brazil against Panama, even tho both are not close to their best as of yet, but played good enough to win convincingly. What dissapointed me a bit yesterday was Japan. Also managed to catch only first half, but thought they'll be more convincing against Iceland at home. Kinda missed creativity there, ideas. Mitoma and Minamino absences might be costly

 

If you watched the USA v Senegal game what was the pitch like? I saw some footage of the Senegal players training before the match and there was barely any bounce in the surface.

 

Watched via online stream, so picture quality wasn't perfect, but pitch or some problems with it didn't catch my attention, so it should've been fine

 

Another solid result for Norway despite missing their 2 best players. Anyone able to watch them today? How did they play?

 

The scoreline flattered Sweden.

Norway were 3-0 up and could have scored a few more. Sweden scored late after Norway made a lot of changes.

Norway look good, but also Swedens defence was poor. It's really ard to guage because Sweden was horrific all through qualifying and are only going to the world cup because of the UNL.

Norway didnt look as good last window losing against the Dutch and drawing against Switzerland at home.

 

Turkey 4 Macedonia 0
Austria 1 Tunisia 0
Norway 3 Sweden 1
Colombia 3 Costa Rica 1

 

Canada 2-0 Uzbekistan

 

Why isn't Uruguay playing any friendlies ? I think they are the only country to not have any scheduled.

 

Centre-back Moïse Bombito (Canada, Nice) had to get subbed in the 30th minute. Doesn't seem match fit.

 

They are "officially" saying that he only planned to play half an hour but he was clearly limping on the way off. Doesn't bode well for him featuring extensively in the tournament.

 

Croatia 0 Belgium 2
Morocco 4 Madagascar 0
Wales 1 Ghana 1
Haiti 4 New Zealand 0

 

Bielsa said the uneven physical condition among the players, with some arriving while still recovering, others carrying a heavy workload of minutes, and other players having seen little playing time at their clubs made it difficult to schedule friendlies and that playing them would worsen the situation instead of improve it.

Plus he also said that he didn't want the players to get injured or tired just before the world cup.

I don't agree with the decision but it is what it is.

Ironically enough De Arrascaeta got injured during training but he never shows up for the NT anyway so I'm not too worried about that

 

Wales had the better chances against Ghana and should've won.

I expect Ghana to finish last behind Panama in Group L.

Haiti 4-0 NZ is an eyebrow raising result from a Scotland perspective!

 

Haiti weren't that better as much as I watched the game, they just converted their chances at very high rate, while NZ had some good ones too, but couldn't hit the target. Overall the game looked quite even, this result is too harsh on Kiwis.
While I agree on Ghana, they looked poor and were dangerous basically only few times on counters, scored after one too, but could've been easily 0-2 down in opening 15mins of the game when Wales hit the post after miraculous save by keeper, then the bar. This game definitely lowered my expectations about them. Still, Panama is beatable, but I'm starting to doubt their chances against Croatia, unless they will outrun them and be deadly on counters, but if Croatia won't force things, play patiently, they should simply win it on class

 

I have been saying for weeks now that Haiti can give Scotland a good test in that first match. They are much better than Curaçao.

 

They've been hit really badly with injuries. They've lost their #1 and #2 centrebacks, and their #1 player and superstar Mohammed Kudus.

New coaches first game. Yeah the first 15 minutes were really bad, but they stabilized and improved as the game went on.

We will see if the ship can be steadied enough by Quireoz to be able to at least beat Panama.

 

I don't know what is going on with that but he got injured anyways. So did their other target Edward Nketiah.

 

The USA-Senegal match was the most viewed men’s match ever on TNT network.
Shows you how things are ramping up interest wise. There have been many friendlies on TNT with more popular teams than Senegal. People are stoked for this World Cup.

 

That was a horrific friendly for them to sign up for. That squad literally hasn't made a final round of WCQ in a bazillion years until this cycle with 3 teams serving as hosts. They are basically an odd tackle dummy for the reasonably strong to solid Central American sides and the rest of concacrap. I have no idea why they'd match up with them?!?! Such an odd choice. They're currently ranked 15th in our region by elo, and that's probably kind to them. For some reason they're 125 in the world, I'd probably put them around 160.

A friendly w/them served no value whatsoever beyond maybe getting used to the climate if they played it in Central America or Mexico, but they didn't, so I have no idea why they did this?!?! So bizarre. It would be like your Nigeria if they'd qualified, lining up Vietnam, or Myanmar for a friendly if you ended up getting selected into say South Korea's group. Utterly strange. I had high hopes for South Africa 18 months ago, but now I tend to think they'll get pulverized, and it's a shame because there are other CAF sides that almost certainly would have won that group (Ivory Coast, Senegal, maybe Ghana, maybe DRC), hell even Cape Verde could have maybe grabbed 2nd in there, but the way South Africa's playing, the opportunity looks completely wasted .