2026 WC USA (et al): Worldwide Opponents Watch [all R's]

That’s a perspective hahahaha

 

The Athletic's pre-tournament simulations (for whatever their models are worth) had us making it to the San Francisco match in first place in our group just under 50% of the time.

Thus far, I've predicted the result of the first three matches, and I'm sure a lot of us have. Everything so far seems to be playing out according to form.

 

It is done. I'm going.

 

If we win our group we're 100% locked in to that game, the opponent comes down to an algorithm of which 8 groups have their 3rd place teams advance

 

Shoot me a DM if the US is in that game, got a beer with your name on it

 

I thought Korea looks better yesterday, but the Korea vs Mexico game could end up in any result. Should be a great game

 

It is.

And I'll fight anyone who disagrees......

Any flag apparel is also disrespectful and should be removed.

Especially bikini tops.

 

What I think is it’s a more high variance strategy. It’s not any more likely to be successful and I think struggles when you have to carry a game. But it raises the chances of springing upsets.

 

Ultimately I think it’s that it’s a job he’s always wanted and he got extremely close but didn’t quite get it. And I can understand being disappointed after that, but he’s taken it to an entirely different level at this point and has been a bit immature about it.

 

With Bosnia being the most likely opponent if we get there. And Egypt the most likely opponent if we finish second.

 

I will be there as well! Come on boys!

 

I love that Fox has paired Lalas with Ibra and Henri. It has really put a leash on his obnoxiousness so far.

 

Will there be a Bigsoccer tailgate party?

 

has it??

 

Yeah. It was way up in the cheap seats. US vs Ghana

 

I couldn't figure out that Canada game, but in the end I had them winning, and they definitely outplayed Bosnia, good for Bosnia though, getting a result in Toronto in that crazy space, couldn't have been easy, now if they do what they should, beat Qatar, they are through to the knockouts which should be amazing. I remember making fun of, in my aggravation, Esmir, for joining a side that would never qualify for anything, well, he's playing in a freaking World Cup, so he most definitely showed me lol, and his was the clinching kick that sent them their in penalties. Just crazy.

 

You can see how it can play out at the wiki site, just have to order which teams grab the best 3rd place records to advance. I ended up picking Czech, Scotland, Paraguay, Ecuador, Sweden, Senegal, Austria and DR Congo. I went back and forth with Czech and Bosnia and Sweden, but I always had the others in, it was just a question of who would be second in group E between Senegal and Norway. Senegal's ugly May/June friendlies made me switch them with Norway which may just be wrong.

 

Can I take a second to bitch...who the fxck decided these kickoff times? The tournament is in North America, the next most important TV market is Europe, why the hell are they not getting started earlier than 3pm ET even on the weekends? There's no reason they couldn't start at noon today rather than force the last game to be played in the middle of the night ET and most of the slate in the middle of the night in Europe.

Also, who the hell decided that the game between the US' other 2 group opponents should be played at midnight ET?

 

Part of it is tv markets, but I definitely think part of it is reporting from '94 and the CWC last year that players were literally melting into the turf during noon start games, and despite the "learning me something," somebody tried to do in one of these threads several months ago, turns out, nope, a ton of stadiums do not have domes, and yes, it is a real bad idea to play in places like Kansas City and Miami, and even in the Northeast at Noon, not to mention Mexico.

I wish they could have just had earlier games out west, and later games out east in the obvious hot and humid environments. I don't know why they didn't do that, that would work best, as earlier west games would keep the start times not crazy late, and later east times wouldn't bother people like me out west who are 3 hours earlier etc.

 

It's much worse for TV though, not great for US east coast and awful for Europe.

I get the weather concerns but a) 12-2pm local is actually less bad than 3-5pm most places and b) I have to think there are enough venues that are either domed or in temperate climates (Toronto, Seattle etc) that you could give those cities the games being played in early-mid afternoon local time and let the Mexican cities, Miami, KC etc have the evening games. There are other factors too (you don't really want games kicking off before noon or after 9pm local time regardless of weather) and maybe you can't get 100% of the games slotted in neatly according to those criteria but I have to think you could at minimum get the vast majority of games slotted in appropriately for say a 12/3/6/9pm ET slate, especially since they could have used AI to optimize everything.

And the Australia-Turkey thing is a totally unforced error, all of the Group D games should've been scheduled at a reasonable time for the entire country to watch on TV. Same with the other games in Mexico and Canada's groups too, for that matter.

 

Also, why are all those teenagers on my lawn?

 

How is wanting the games to be at a decent time for the east coast and Europe an "old man yells at cloud" thing lol

And I looked and there are noon ET games during the week! Just not on the weekend! It makes no sense!

 

So the crowd for Switzerland-Qatar is just gonna be 2 guys right? A sheikh on one side and a banker on the other and they each bought out half the stadium so they wouldn't have to sit among peasants?

 

Not easy, but they found a time that works in Australia (2 pm Sydney/Melbourne), Turkey (7 am) and where the game is played (9 pm best coast time). Scheduling this one for convenience of the US east coast or western Europe doesn't make sense as a priority.

For the other games today, they didn't do noon ET because that would have required one of the games in the Northeast to take that slot, and that carries too much danger of extreme mid-day heat.

 

I'm seeing loads of empty seats