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

I do feel like Cubarsi made that…but Enzo was going in crazy

 

Santos went on tours worldwide playing an exhausting schedule out of season.Pele was expected to be Pele by everyone except his opponents,who wanted to stop him by any means necessary.

 

Pele had a tournament ending injury at minute 53 of the second game in 1962. That WC was all Garrincha and Vava with Amarildo doing a decent job replacing Pele.

 

Another thing about Spain. 15 of their 26 players play for one of three clubs (Barcelona, Atletico, and Athletic Bilbao). And you have another three players who came up in the youth academies of those teams. Helps I think in terms of why they can like a modern club team.

 

All Zidane had to do is not headbutt anyone.

Also goes back to different eras, less teams in the World Cup, you had to play less games to win it, etc. The era of Pele is just not at all really comparable to the modern day.

 

I tend to view it as:

1930-1938 Crazy nonsense and cheating Mussolini and WWII completely compromised tournament.

1950-1966: Semi-Modern Era was still layers of stupid.

1970-1994: Pre-Modern Era w/weird Knockout Rounds through 1982 and heavy UEFA dominance of slots throughout.

1998-2026: Modern era, with increasing size, and some rule changes after the 1990 fiasco, and a more liberalized distribution of slots.

People may subdivide differently as they see fit, but the WC as we know it, with modern rules, closer to fair slot allotments, and a true sense of a WC has only been around since France '98.

I also feel reasonable in being aggressive in viewing 1930-1938 as largely utter nonsense, and 1950-1966 as an utterly different world. 1970-1982 is weird too, and 1986-1994 continued with the massively unbalanced slot allotment, so it depends, but yeah, I definitely think that while you shouldn't take away prior WC trophies and achievements, people should be reasonable about the differences between the era's and the relative competitiveness, fairness and equitability of it, which was and is largely a huge issue until the last 30 years and crazy when you look at the pre 1970s.

 

1990 fiasco?

 

That World Cup was super boring, defensive, negative, etc and had the lowest goals scored per game of any World Cup. Led to a number of rules changes like no back passes to goalies allowed, getting three points for a win instead of 2, etc.

 

Very, very true.

As we said earlier in this thread...................Spain didn't get past the round of 16 in 2014, 0218 or 2022.

They won the World cup in 2010 and then got their doors blown off in 2014. Lost to the Netherlands 5-1 in a pretty iconic beatdown.

This whole thing is really difficult. Its highly, highly, highly competitive.

Spain failed to beat Cape Verde in 2026. They were in dogfights against Portugal and Belgium.
Scored the winner in extra time against Portugal and in the 88th minute against Belgium.
Scored the winner in the final against Argentina in extra time.

The margins at an event like this are razor thin.

Next time the luck may not go Spain's way. Next time who knows?

Argentina beat Switzerland in extra time who beat Colombia on penalties who scraped by Ghana 1-0 who barely made it into the knockout phase as a third place team.

 

Good discussion. In the end, I didn't really care who won the final, but I was cheering for Spain for many of the same reasons (better team in the tournament and Argentina's cynical play). The final was a disappointment and super happy that it didn't go to PKs. Can you imagine Argentina winning two WCs by PKs? Also, no shots during regulation? That is embarassing.
Overall, a better WC than I expected. As several of you noted, it's not necessarily the most talented team who wins, but the team who is the best tournament team.

Messi the GOAT. Different times? Same as with other sports. I don't get too caught up. I prefer to discuss who was best during different times. Messi would have been hacked to death in the 60s and 70s.

While I enjoyed the tournament, I'm glad that I didn't fork out the money to go to the games.

 

The 128 games looks right. 4 additional groups x 6 games per group = 24 more games total. All the additional games in the group phase, with knockout rounds the same as this year. So, you don't need to add another week. This year's timing was fine.

I'm fine with 64, if the alternative is 48. I prefer avoiding the 3rd place advancements. But it really needs to max out at 64. UEFA could easily increase without a talent dilution at the event, but it gets dodgy when expanding the number of nations from the other confederations. Plus, I still want qualifiers to have some meaning.

 

Honestly, 64 teams won't dilute the talents as much as we all think.

These are some of the teams that did not make WC26.

Italy
Cameroon
Nigeria
Denmark
Poland
Greece
Chile
Serbia

I would say most of these teams would put up a good competition.

 

The World Cup Final averaged 66.4 million viewers in the U.S. on FOX and Telemundo combined.

42.5 million on FOX. 23.9 million on Telemundo.

Other than Super Bowls, this is the largest sports audience since the 1994 Winter Olympics.

— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) July 21, 2026

Not bad

 

What did the last super bowl look like? I ask, too lazy to look it up.

 

125 million.

I think if we were in the final against Messi and Argentina it would have approached that.

 

I agree that 23 million seems low. Then again, maybe there were more watch parties. I can imagine lots of groups getting together to hate watch Argentina and root for Spain.

 

It goes to the keeper who gave up the fewest goals, the inverse of the Golden Boot. That’s Simon.

 

So if the World Cup finals are expanded to 64 teams does that mean all 10 CONMEBOL members are automatically qualified?

 

Considering their no 7 team couldn't beat Asia's 9th for this tournament I'm not sure how you could justify 4 more spots out of the extra 16 for them.

 

The best thing about the hosting of World Cup 2026 was the climate - too hot for the pressing-above-everything approach that is the scourge of club football. The beneficiaries were the star attackers, the ball-playing midfielders, and in turn the viewers. https://t.co/HLwWOREgG6

— Michael Cox (@Zonal_Marking) July 22, 2026

Article about how the heat impacted how teams played tactically. The flip side is that Spain was one of the more aggressive pressing teams in the tournament. Helped I think by the fact that every Spain game except one before the final was played indoors and for the final it was not a super hot day in New York.

 

I mean, Neymar and Mbappe took PSG to their first UCL Final in history, losing by a goal to Bayern. That's actually a pretty amazing accomplishment for a (checks notes) 21-year-old Kylian Mbappe. You might remember, that Bayern dropped 7 on Chelsea and famously blew Barcelona's back out 8-2 in a match that Messi and Suarez started. It doesn't seem like PSG was the one with bad defense, but what do you think?

So let's recap: PSG add Mbappe and they have the deepest UCL run in their history. The very next season 34 y/o Messi joins the team and they don't make it back to a final until 2025. Does this fit your narrative about Mbappe?

It's not a "relevant factor" because it's not true. You had to pull an example from 3 years ago and it doesn't even line up with your claim. This year, Real Madrid had the fewest goals against in La Liga and France went into the semifinals conceding only two goals, the best defense besides Spain. So what are you talking about?

All you're doing is arguing why Messi shouldn't win it, as we can all see directly that playing with Messi hurt Argentina's defensive structure. Argentina conceded in every knockout match, conceded 1st in 3/5 KO round games and conceded multiple goals in 2/5 KO round games, against inferior competition.

 

I would say that it’s hard to call his tenure at PSG overall a success given the lack of team success while he was there and how good they’ve been since he left.

Mbappe’s lack of defensive effort is actually quantifiable. When it comes to virtually every defensive stat he is in the 1st percentile and that’s not because he’s physically unable it’s a lack of interest in doing the work. You literally have his French teammates telling him before the tournament he has to try harder with the national team on defense.

Finally, the season has ended.

Kylian Mbappe is now ranked 1st (from bottom) in top 5 league. https://t.co/4TM7wREwOQ pic.twitter.com/X9qjMPkVmy

— Mohammad Adnan (@adnaaan433) May 26, 2026

More generally it shows up in the team results at Madrid. The goal number given number doesn’t mean a ton given what a talent advantage Madrid has against almost everyone they play. But his disinterest in trying on defense is absolutely a factor against Barcelona, in the Champions League, etc.

And it was absolutely a factor in France’s loss to Spain.

Mbappe is a great player offensively, but in the modern game when you don’t try at all on one side of the ball it absolutely impacts team success.

Yes I don’t think Messi should win the Ballon D’Or.