2026 World Cup Group Stage Predictions:

It's just unfortunate they never replaced that HC. He has just attached a governor to their attack for 8 or 9 years running, and it has absolutely throttled their ceiling as a national team. That WC Final was one of the rare times it felt like he let go of the reins, and the team took it to Argentina after that. His approach might make their D just a touch better, much like England's old manager now gone, but the both of them throttled the ceiling of their teams attacks in focusing so thoroughly on keeping balls out of their own net. England did have its greatest run since 1966 (and 1990) with him in charge, but I think a more open minded coach would have collected a Title over the past several tournaments England came close to grabbing, but not quite, just as France has come close but not quite ever since they grabbed WC '18 (and before that at Euro '16). Can't help but wonder if between them, those two coaches cost their national teams at least 2 and possibly 3 titles between 2016 and 2026.

I expect France to play well though, they are France, a tier above everyone currently alongside Spain, and Brazil's talent factory if not performance. But man, under Deschamps the limp noodle performance of that attack consistently other than like that Nations League dream of a match with Spain a year ago just makes you wonder. He needs to let go, and let that attack pulverize opponents but he largely never allows it.

 

Hate to say it as a USMNT fan, but I think last place in the group is a possibility.

For whatever reason, Pochettino has not worked out well at all with this team.

Could they turn it around? It's possible. I think they were hurt by not having to qualify. Vibes are bad. Pulisic is in a funk. Our players have experience playing for much more prestigious clubs than any of our past world cup teams, but they don't seem to play well together.

In the last World Cup, we defended fairly well we just struggled with strikers that had no confidence and were no threat to score. Now we don't seem to do anything well.

All this said, historically, the US has been ridiculously good at home in world cup qualifiers, and none of the teams we are facing are much better than Mexico historically. Fingers crossed they get up for this.

South Korea made the semifinals when it was held in Korea. And Russia very nearly made the semis in Russia. So there is precedent for the home teams to overperform.

Winning the opening match is probably hugely important for how the US does. (It is for any team but especially the US this cycle I think.) A loss in the opener and it could all go south.

 

Friendlies do not mean much but at least we have already seen Paraguay and Australia over the last few months. They did not look impressive at all.
But this is the World Cup and there will be more pressure. The tactics and way those teams play against us will be different. The team will either step it up and play with pride or fall flat which rarely happens in big events in the USA but it did happen in the Copa America 2024 so you never know.
Last place though seems very unlikely though.

 

There was a fantastic article ages ago about home field advantage. Soccer and basketball were the two sports that were most susceptible to it. It wasn't actually the players though. It was the referees that were most affected.

 

Deschamps realized during Euro 2024 that he no longer had the players to play in transition effectively. Since then, he has consistently used a 4-2-3-1. The squad announced this evening pretty much confirms it: 5 "midfielders" with double-pivot profiles, and 9 "forwards" for the 4 offensive spots.

 

I don't normally give anything like a mulligan when talking about Copa America '24, but if you want a steel manning of the performance it was this:

Game 1: Beat Bolivia comfortably but should have won by more.
Game 2: Dominant in the first 20 minutes, it looked like yet another multigoal beat down of Panama coming (they happen in WCQ's but never in tournaments for some reason, so this would have been a change of pace if it had continued), but an uncalled egregious foul on our keeper which should have been carded made players incensed, and playing w/some of the same idiot refs who had turned previous matches with El Tri into a blood bath, this game descended into chaos later with Weah being red carded a few minutes afterwards for a punch.

That changed the game. We were a disorganized, tired mess and finally capitulated in the 80whatever minute. That game is an easy USA win 19 times out of 20 w/how we were playing if we had competent refs and Weah wasn't an idiot in the moment.

Game 3: Toothless, anemic, "lets get our coach fired," quit job against Uruguay in a match we had to win by multiple goals to have any chance of advancing.

It was an erratic window with Uruguay and Colombia turning us into a puddle, middling performance against Bolivia, and a strong performances against Brazil, and that ref tainted nightmare with Panama.

It was a real weird tournament that was distorted by the nature of incompetent, and culturally permissive concacrap reffing.

I have no idea what we'll see though. This team is very Heckle and Jekyll, never putting together consistent performances 3 at a time, don't know who will be healthy either, and whether the guys will have the right mentality. A lot is an unknown for now. We could win the group, or most likely take 2nd easily, but we could also just suck. I have no idea what they'll do. They should easily advance, but this team has been erratic for two years running.

 

But was the article talking about team/club home advantage or national team home advantage?

There's a notable difference IMO. There are many facets of home advantage beyond just crowd noise, and some of them only apply at the club level while others apply at both levels but more strongly at club level.

 

Hopefully their sampled data did not include South American matches in the 1980s+1990s, back when Colombian druglords would openly threaten referees ahead of continental matches. That's how both Medellin and Cali clubs became *powerhouses* on the continental stage.

The fear of playing in Colombian venues was so bad that ARG withdrew just once in the modern era of Copa America: 2001 Copa America, dubbed by BRA players as "Fear Cup".

 

I was talking about Germany’s group in the post you quoted though

 

That’s possible yes, I see many groups with possible 4 points thirds… Time will tell I guess xD

 

One of the most intriguing things was how track field international stadiums for soccer were a net negative, that proximity of fans to the field definitely ramped up home town cooking, and the more distance between the fans and the field, the less biased the reffing lol, so some of those cookie cutter Chinese Stadium Projects multi-purpose built with track and field bits, were actually a net negative (this is supposedly part of the reason Saprissa was a plus for Costa Rica and their new stadium is not nearly so intimidating).

 

I see Uzbekistan, Scotland, Senegal and Canada squeezing through with 3 points each...K, C, I and B as the last four slots

 

It's wild that you can still see groups this distorted, but clearly part of the problem was w/so many playoffs in March instead of in November like in World Cups past, they ended up tossing powerful UEFA sides, and a pretty strong DR Congo, and erratic Ghana into a pot with a bunch of seemingly hopeless cream puffs (Curacao, Haiti, Jordan, typically New Zealand (though their group is so weak, I could see NZ shocking the world next month)......Normally Pot 4 would have shifted Turkey, Sweden, Bosnia, and Czech over to Pot 3, and we'd see the Saudi's, Qatar, South Africa etc in Pot 4 instead.

But the inbalancing has created a couple of ridiculously easy pathways for Argentina, Belgium, probably Switzerland, and then a couple of White/Black or Black/White groups where you have two Mega Man Super Sides, and two distinctly lesser sides (Portugal and Colombia, then the drop to the Uzbek's and DR Congo, or England and Croatia's group L (with Panama, and Ghana fighting for scraps), Spain and Uruguay with Cape Verde and the Saudi's trying to stay alive.

Basically we could have a third place monopolized by some weak sisters especially out of Group G and J, which is part of the reason I hope the lesser sides in those two groups just draw one another so actually talented third place sides at risk (for me those would be out of Groups D-F and I and K in particular) don't end up on the outside looking in just because of the luck of the draw.

Can't wait to see how this goes, though I'm frustrated with the piles of injuries that are hitting at this point.

 

Here’s the thing though. You could be right. BUT Remember 2014? The last time matches were in this Hemisphere People were penciling in England and Italy as clear cut favorites to finish above Uruguay and Costa Rica. People were also penciling in Portugal to advance in their Group and said USA might finish last.

You just never know how things are going to play out.

 

third place teams and round of 32 matchups are going to be so hard to predict. The easiest way to get a monster round of 32 matchup involving the 3rd place teams is with the Group K/L dynamic. If the 3rd place teams from either of those groups qualify, they are locked into the group winner matchup from the other.

1 random draw could give us a Portugal vs England or Croatia Round of 32.

 

Yes indeed.

 

Oh I'm pretty sure I mentioned this a pages back in the thread. You are absolutely right, there are a large collection of teams that have to play 2 to 3 games outside of domes, in hot and humid weather. The groups impacted by this pretty heavily are:

Group A (Mexico)
Group C (Northeast and Miami)
Group E (Northeast and KC)
Group F (Mexico and KC)
Group H (Miami and Mexico)
Group I (Northeast)
Group J (two games in KC)
Group K (Mexico and Miami)
Group L (Northeast)

Groups B, D and G escape the bad weather out west where it should be warm, especially LA, but not too bad.

When I looked at it a few weeks ago what came across was some confederations appeared deliberately to be packed into the hottest and most humid environs, CAF, and Conmebol sides consistently were piled into the hottest and most humid of games, oddly Concacrap, and the AFC, which are generally used to hot or humid weather (or both) had few teams playing games in these conditions.

I did check on UEFA, to see which sides drew the most likely to be terrible weather matches and they were Czech Republic (Guadalajara and Azteca matches), Scotland (2 games in open air humid environments, and 1 hellscape game in Miami against Brazil, their only hope in that game is Brazil being through as group winners because they will melt, even though it may be a 6pm game), Germany (two of three are in open air stadiums in the Northeast which should be quite humid), The Dutch and the Swedes manage to play only 1 game each in rough conditions (Sweden opens the group in Guadalajara, while the Dutch end the group phase in KC, known for being exceptionally hot in the summer), Spain will wrap up their Group Stage in Guadalajara against Uruguay yikes, France and Norway will play their entire group stage in the Northeast in Open Air stadiums, so expect humidity and possible heat (heat waves can be brutal in the Northeast when they swing through), Austria wraps up their group stage in KC against Algeria, giving Algeria the edge in my view, Portugal wraps in Miami against Colombia, advantage Colombia, and lastly, after opening in a dome in Jerry Jones mega stadium in Dallas, England and Croatia travel to the open air stadiums in the Northeast for their final two matches.....

I need to keep this in mind before I do my final predictions and group winner status bets because there are a lot of interesting scenarios where we could have some real upsets in terms of group winners.

In Group A, it's pretty easy to imagine the Czech's being throttled by their limitations and the brutal conditions in their last two group stage matches. Its critical they win their 2nd match with South Africa, as I think South Korea AND El Tri will be heavily advantaged in the other two matches.

In Group C, I never really thought Scotland had a chance, but looking at the likely weather conditions, they will struggle to advance in 3rd place, hell Haiti could pass them (they aren't good, but they have decent skill and are a fast, athletic team that will be fine with the weather).

In Group E it might be worth considering the possibility that Ecuador or Ivory Coast could win the group. They won't be bothered by the weather but Germany will (otoh, Germany handled Japan/South Korea, South Africa and Brazil just fine in '02, '10 and '14).

In group F, it would have been tempting to pick Japan in an upset if it hadn't been for the litany of injuries they've sustained and the fact that the Dutch and Sweden largely avoid the bad weather games.

In Group H, I may now put some $$$ down on Uruguay, Spain is probably fine w/heat, but Miami is another level, and Uruguay is used to such games.

In Group I I may need to be more aggressive with Senegal, ALL the games are in rough and humid conditions.....

In Group J, Austria having to travel to KC to battle Algeria on the final matchday could be a nightmare if they need anything from that game.

In Group K, Colombia playing in front of a large ex-pat community in Miami possibly to win the group against Portugal is pretty easily advantage Colombia.

In Group L, it's impossible to imagine England and Croatia crashing out, and yet, after they face off against one another both Panama and Ghana will be much better prepared for the humid weather and potential heat waves that hit for the latter two games.

Also one other detail that definitely merits attention, FIFA did do a good job of making sure the group stage finales in the more hot or humid or both environs will all be played in the evening, this should help a bit, to varying degrees depending upon where the matches are played.

 

My Croatia is known to struggle against underdogs, and hot weather could be that extra bit that causes a fatal fiasco in the remaining two games after the expected loss to England. We have an aging starting XI which won't handle exhaustion all that well, and furthermore, Dalić doesn't rotate much.

 

The sorta good news is that it isn't a worst case scenario which probably would have been Miami, Guadalajara, that sort of thing. It's Toronto, which isn't too bad in terms of temps (sounds like 75-80), with rising humidity towards the end of the month, with it being June 23rd, your guys should feel it a bit, but the tougher game is probably the match with Ghana on June 27th. The range is pretty crazy but it's basically 65-85 degrees (err towards the higher) but with muggy levels of humidity. That one is liable to be the unpleasant one, for Croatia's sake, I think reversing who you play when probably would be better (Ghana in Toronto, Panama in NY), otoh, Panama is totally used to heavy humidity, and has played in it in Gold Cups for decades and plays at home in exceptionally hot and humid conditions, so maybe they wouldn't be fun either (aggressive, foul happy, and athletic, they are a nightmare if you have a permissive ref, and a dream if you have a UEFA ref. I would check to see what refs handle the Panama games as they'll get cards if its UEFA, but probably not if its Conmebol or Concacrap).

 

I'll likely be screaming at Dalić for not rotating the squad once Panama and Ghana come up. I hope he's sensible enough so we do finish at least with 4 points. Croatia have flopped at any WC with very humid climate: Korea/Japan and Brazil. Also, flopped in two competitions held in Germany (WC 2006 and Euro 2024). Meanwhile, Germans loved it in humid places like Japan and Brazil.

 

The good news is you got a favorable draw, nearly ideal teams from Pot 3, and Pot 4. They will be comfortable in the conditions unlike you guys, but Panama isn't remotely on your level, and Ghana has been a mess for the better part of the past dozen years (they qualified for WC '22 thanks in part to a dive a terrible ref bought in qualifying, in terms of their other big competitions, the AFCON, they lost to Cape Verde and tied Egypt and Mozambique in the Group stage and crashed out in the Group Stage in '23, and in this past AFCON they failed to qualify entirely. Well, did they do great in qualifying? Yes, but that appears to have been thanks to a cake draw. They drew Mali out of Pot 1, the worst Pot 1 side, 6th out of 9 for the Pot 3 side (Madagascar), 7th out of 9 Central African Republic out of Pot 4, they did draw moderately tough Pot 5 and Pot 6 sides, but then they are Pot 5 and Pot 6 sides, ranked outside the worlds top 100 (Comoros, who've actually improved a good bit, and Chad, who have not)....so as you can see, their qualification campaign was not terribly challenging. The only strong opponent they faced was a Mali side that hasn't really come close to qualifying in ages, and a Madagascar side that I've never noticed, but did show promise this cycle.

So with Ghana, they simply don't look close to their '06-'14 level, Panama is Panama. So if your team crashes out, well, they deserve it. It's kind of like my USA. They are a better side than 2 of their 3 opponents anyway in their group, but, they have also been completely hopeless and unmotivated at times for 2 years running, so instead of being confident, like I would have been in '02, '10, '14 and '22, I've got no freaking idea, but they will deserve a brutal judgment for their performance if they stink it up as they really have no excuse. They did get a tough draw out of Group 3, and Group 4, but they got an ideal draw out of Pot 2 considering the top end sides in that pot....We both don't have an excuse for failing, we're both better, period, we don't have the weather issues you'll face, but the final matchday will be 6pm, not noon, or 3pm, so that will help, and matchday 2 is in Toronto, it's not Miami, or Northern or Central Mexico etc.

 

What new stadium? Saprissa continues to play league matches in the same venue since 1972, which is a multi-purpose stadium too.

Multi-purpose stadiums make lots of sense, if you want to keep football clubs out of debt. Nobody cares about *fan intimidation* when a club must be relegated / declared in bankruptcy for using single-purpose venues.

 

Analysis of My Rankings compared to FIFA

World Cup Edition (only world cup teams)

UNDERATED BY FIFA

1. Jordan +22
2. Cape Verde +22
3. Paraguay +17
4. Norway +15
5. South Africa +14
6. DR Congo +12
7. Japan +11
8. Austria +11
9. Canada +9
10. New Zealand +8

OVERRATED BY FIFA

1. Curacao -45
2. Haiti -27
3. Qatar -26
4. South Korea -26
5. Panama -19
6. Iran -19
7. Saudi Arabia -17
8. Iraq -16
9. Belgium -15
10. Czechia -13

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/alternative-world-rankings-thread.2092151/page-26

 

FIFA has Australia & Egypt at 27 and 29

I have them at 28 and 33. I dont really think either team is much better than that range, think its about right.

South Africa is probably on the downward trend but FIFA never gave them the credit they deserved after the 2023 AFCON, or beating Nigeria to the WC. #60 is definately harsh

Netherlands can't really be overrated than more than a few places so they dont show up on the list. Both hosts USA and Mexico are definately more overrated and just failed to make the list.

When we look strictly at the most overrated World Cup teams in the top 30 its

Belgium, Iran, South Korea, USA, Mexico