England Forum - FIFA World Cup 2026: Other Teams Thread

This isn't fully the case. In the west country, Rugby is popular over the class barrier and has decent representation throught the spectrum as a result.

 

It got better.

Rather enjoyed the Czech goal. Proper football that

 

Americans are so painfully stupid with this stuff. It's like they're not familiar with Leo Messi, Luca Modric and then Adama Troare.

 

It's always the same. Pick the pure athletes who are drilled into specialisation in their sports - a team comprised of eleven Micah Richards.
I would have thought if you're looking for the top players in other sports who could have made it in football that the NHL would provide the most by some distance.

 

Slight side note but I saw a video before of Brad Friedel talking about how England fans are insufferable for the simple reason they "always think they'll win the World Cup" - which isn't even true, but even if it was, why would that be so bad? - yet you see on a near weakly basis Americans trotting out the "if our best athletes played soccer we'd dominate" line.

It's also extremely common to hear American fans talking about a future World Cup win once the sport reaches a certain level of popularity in the US like it's some sort of inevitability.

It's hilarious how little self awareness there is because those takes are as arrogant and over-confident (not that there's even anything wrong with that) as anything you'll ever see from an England fan - yet they're always some of the first to talk about "English arrogance".

 

World Champions there mate, no doubt about it, I mean there football ability is bound to be as the same elite standard as there own sports

 

That's one of their favourite games

Also - Aren't a lot of them quite old ?

 

Interesting point, and the West Country is a region which is a peculiar outlier and probably followed a different historical pattern to the rest of country.
However that still wouldn't convince me that something like government policy could engineer rugby to become as ambient as football in the industrial parts of England, simply because it took a different historical path in the (mostly rural) West Country.

In fact, I've previously wondered why the West Country is so rubbish at football compared to the rest of England and even found it a bit unusual, how football is not a religion there as the rest of the country.

Not running the place down btw, I think its arguably the most picturesque part of Britain.
But I have to say, the place almost reminded me more of the Welsh than the rest of England. When visited, I often felt like I was somewhere in a cross between ancient England and Wales.

 

Sithole with an unfortunate surname for such events.

 

I can't speak for the entire region, but football is still popular for sure, but we also do have a disproportionate amount of the top Rugby club teams and 6 nations days are alway big here.

Bristol is a huge underachiever in football, I'm too young to really remember Rovers being in second division, but we should be better than we are.

The main problem is the relative lack of big cities I'd say. Bristol is a big city, but our other cities are on the small side and generally fairly spaced out.

This is also why unlike Rover I don't really feel the rivalry with Wales too much. I'm from Gloucestershire and now live in Bristol. We are close to Wales and have lots of interactions with welsh people. We play them every year in Rugby and it's generally a friendly but competitive atmosphere.

Not to say I suppport Wales, but I'd enjoy a Scotland crash-out more.

 

These are the American fans I can't stand as an American

 

Quite excited today for the USMNT.

I'm sick and tired about the all the negativity surrounding America going into the World Cup how we "don't deserve anything" from many outsiders and self-hating Americans themselves. Perform well and stick it to the haters. It's an easy team to root for with the personalities in the team and it's their moment to inspire and grow soccer in the United States for generations to come.

 

Sure I read somewhere that relative to resources like population and City status that Bristol is the biggest underachiever in English football.

 

🚨 Exclusive: Thomas Partey is unavailable to play in Ghana’s opening World Cup match against Panama in Canada on June 17 as he has been denied entry to the country. Full story @TheAthleticFC: https://t.co/AzcsWhz4TC

— Dan Sheldon (@Dan_Sheldon_) June 12, 2026

Canada have denied Thomas Partey entry to so Ghana won’t have him for their match against Panama.

I do hope we not going to see tons of footballers posting Justice for Thomas stuff as that won’t exactly feel nice.

 

I was surprised he got a US visa

 

I posted the other day that the FA had briefed the press that they were prepared for the issue of shaking hands with him (Post match is what could be more problematic in my view)