Pre-match: 2026 World Cup (Round of 16): Colombia vs. Switzerland (7/7/26 – Tuesday – 4:00 PM EST)

The Swiss played their game, took what was given and were smart and crisp and they didn't really trouble us but we weren't brave enough or dominant to really seperate ourselves. No one really had a great game attack wise, Suarez was poor and missed his chance to shine but really disappointing from Diaz, if we wanted to make a run we needed him to shine and he had a very poor World Cup from his standards. It is what it is, we took our level up as a team in the World Cup overall compared to the last 2 years and lost in penalties could have been worse, and they got us dreaming but it wasn't meant to be.

Lots of good players coming through, Puerta is a revelation and just the type of player we need, time to limit James and Quintero to 20-30 minutes maybe for a year or two, but we need to find new solutions and new creative players to be ready for the next World Cup. Lots of good young talent and still guys that missed out on this World Cup hopefully take that as motivation to get their house in order and keep pushing.

 

Yes the defense was great, but they arent very skilled with the ball, which impacts the offense.
Hopefully yerson cabal and arizala get shots bc they are more skilled

 

I feel terrible for lucho. I don’t blame him for the performance but as the poster boy, 1 goal in this tournament is hard to defend. Specially when you have a 38 year old man running around out scoring everyone

 

Hay muchos factores que llevaron a este resultado, y sin querer excusar al tecnico y a los jugadores, el desgaste de la temporada y los largos viajes en el mundial (mas el clima infernal en Miami y KC) contribuyeron a un mal rendimiento el dia de hoy. Era claro que Suiza estaba en mejor condicion fisica y que poco a poco nos llevaron a un juego inefectivo y predecible, pero aun asi, se crearon oportunidades que no se concretaron por mala suerte o la falta de frialdad.

Aparte de eso, esta seleccion produjo resultados engañosos con rutilantes triunfos ante rivales debiles, o con malos tecnicos, pero dista mucho de ser un gran equipo, carente de estrellas, otros con sus mejores años en el retrovisor y el resto de jugadores siendo mas bien del montón. Tristemente aparte de Puerta, Lorenzo no nos deja grandes esperanzas para el futuro.

En general, no definiria esta participacion como un fracaso, pero es triste que no podamos superar nuestras propias limitaciones y barreras habiendo llegado tan cerca, como tantas otras veces.

 

Temu Luis Diaz would have been a way better option then Campaz

more players need to be given chances it was great to go unbeaten for so long but we never really tried new guys and lost a few guys in the process.

also no playing in the USA that forces to start certain player

 

Enamorado?

 

Campaz did not play badly, though; he just missed that goal, which magnified our frustration. Let's also not forget the debatable penalty he drew that was not called during a corner. The game literally had the two best defenses in this tournament. That said it was a bad day, bad game, plus bad preparation. The energy was also a factor, but this could have been prevented in the giving extra rest time, and a minor line up change.

 

I thought the same thing but then i look at Olise or Mbappe and they are performing with their teams:

 

I agree, with Tio, I think that Lorenzo's biggest issue (besides giving James so many opportunities), was to not manage minutes better, specially for Lucho and Puerta, both of them looked gassed by the second extra time. At the same time, we did not close the first two games rapidly enough, and we needed to play our starters against Portugal and against Ghana, so the chances to manage our players' minutes was always an issue.

Besides the grueling schedule, I'm completely annoyed at how our games were all over the continent (Mexico, Guadalajara, Miami, KC, Vancouver), while Switzerland (I know it was intended for Canada) just basically stayed at the dome for 5 games. And we were group winners!!! Couldn't FIFA had created 4 or 6 clusters and had 2 or 3 groups play in relatively close cities, and also organize the bracket games for shorter travel, at least for the winning teams?

For example, Vancouver, Seattle, SF and LA should have hosted 2 groups, and maybe 4-6 knockout games, while the 3 Mexican cities plus Houston and Dallas could have hosted 3 groups and 4-6 games, with two more clusters on the East Coast plus Toronto.

 

Well, at least next World Cup we are guaranteed not to play in South America and have to fly all the way to Spain and Morocco or what have you.
Hopefully we get drawn into a Group that has all their matches in Spain and that’s that.

 

I just asked google AI to show me the traveled distances and rest days for the 8 quarterfinalists and Colombia, and boy did we get screwed:

1 Colombia 10,860 miles (~17,477 km) 4.0 days Eliminated (Round of 16)
2 Spain 7,827 miles (~12,593 km) 3.8 days Quarterfinals (vs. Belgium)
3 %E2%80%8D England 6,000 miles (~9,650 km) 4.2 days Quarterfinals (vs. Norway)
4 Morocco 4,000 miles (~6,430 km) 3.5 days Quarterfinals (vs. France)
5 Switzerland 3,000 miles (~4,820 km) 3.8 days Quarterfinals (vs. Argentina)
6 Argentina 2,500 miles (~4,020 km) 4.0 days Quarterfinals (vs. Switzerland)
7 Norway 2,000 miles (~3,210 km) 4.5 days Quarterfinals (vs. England)
8 Belgium 1,800 miles (~2,890 km) 3.8 days Quarterfinals (vs. Spain)
9 France 1,500 miles (~2,410 km) 3.5 days Quarterfinals (vs. Morocco)

I could understand if there are long trips at this stage, because at some point the north/south east/west clusters have to play to keep advancing, but the fact that we traveled 3 times as much as Switzerland (who is logging a lot of miles in their trip to Atlanta), and almost 7 times as much as France shows how much of a clusterfvck the schedule was.

 

Travel and altitude discrepancies and different climates. It completely went against us.
Part of the reason I was saying all cycle that I wish we did not get drawn into a Group in Mexico.
But a lot of that is bad luck of the draw. A lot of it is failing to get a seed. A seed would have made it less likely to play in all tree host Nations.

 

We knew that we were likely to travel like crazy, we knew that we were likely to have the least amount of rest and we still didn't really manage minutes for Diaz, Puerta at all and kept subbing Arias who's a key player. Lorenzo actually rotated alot for him by just rotating the fullbacks and strikers, so idk. Overall we can't blame fatigue purely for Diaz, usually even if he doesn't score a goal he's creating wide beating players and drawing out defenders but he wasn't really in a roll to do that much this World Cup, he was close to goal and always being looked at to finish plays, that was by design. Really it was a good set up, we didn't ask Diaz to do so much by coming wide and dribbling we allowed him to make runs off the ball and get chances in the penalty area, he didn't do that well, he was offsides too much and he was poor and predictable in those areas coming in off the left, that's just him having a bad few weeks after an exhausting season plus all the travel.

Really overall Lorenzo did pretty good tactically and setting us up well, he has to get someone to track and manage minutes and learn to tactically manage players better, no more running them into the ground on short weeks rest or guys without proper fitness like James, the James issue was something that was easy to see coming, he really didn't offer us anything and is getting off without criticism, we should have had a plan and phased him out and we didn't and suffered for it.

 

Probably the biggest reason FIFA should stop allowing co-hosting of tournaments is the physical toll from traveling, as well as the differing visa restrictions in each country for both fans and players.

 

Switzerland is also an elite team. Losing to them in penalty kicks is not the same as losing to Egypt 2-0 (if that scoreline were to stand).

 

Portugal will be very manageable; Morocco probably not so much.

 

Yeah, but with the expanded format and with FIFA's greed limiting funding for infrastructure, there aren't many countries willing to take the tournament alone. And, I think that in most countries fans (from sh!thole countries or otherwise) will not face the same level of A$$hatery that the USA displayed this year.

 

the next world cup is confirmed to be in Spain/Portugal?

btw, I've heard rumors that the following world cup will be in the US again (not a surprise)

 

You watch certain "news" channels too much... LOL.


Yes it is confirmed, Spain, Portugal and Morocco with a few games in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

 

Really?

 

https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments...n-argentina-morocco-uruguay-portugal-paraguay

 

Wtf

 

Oh, and since we're talking about the future, 2034 is going to be in Saudi Arabia...

If you loved Qatar....