England Forum - FIFA World Cup 2026: Other Teams Thread

It’s mainly there to make money and stop FIFA Pro protesting. FIFA knows the player unions seem to hate international football more than club football.

 

🚨 Joint-statement from Cape Verde, Curaçao, Uzbekistan, Congo, Haiti, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Côte d’Ivoire expressing their “profound disappointment” following the recent comments made by UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin arguing the… pic.twitter.com/U89Hv95PsX

— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) June 14, 2026

 

I've just seen the Dutch team and i'm calling it now Japan win by 1 or 2 goals.

 

What did Ceferin say? Surely it can’t just be, that the expanded World Cup will create “uninteresting” games.

 

Basically gave the impression that some of the team are rubbish and don’t deserve to be there.

 

Gave the impression? What did he actually say?

 

What’s wrong with the Dutch team? Looks decent enough to me

 

I agree. Looks a pretty good side to me. Quite a lot of big match experience in it.

 

UEFA are denying he said anything!
https://talksport.com/football/worl...r-ceferin-comments-joint-statement-world-cup/

 

Why would he? It would be a very dumb thing for him to do. Even though it is correct. Someone trying to undermine him.

 

Lacks the quality of dutch sides of the past.

 

Regardless of whether he said it or not, it's a correct statement. The argument against appears to generally be "teams deserve to play in the World Cup", but they always had the chance to qualify.
Allowing more teams in dilutes the quality unless you can show that teams who didn't qualify are better than those that did. The performances so far indicate that the expansion teams are not teams that should be at the finals.

 

It used to be referred to as the World Cup Finals. They all play in the World Cup but qualifying for the Finals should be a privilege earned on the pitch.

 

Iran are doing the same but not by choice.

 

Yeah maybe, but they’ve done pretty well in the last couple of tournaments, be surprised if they lost personally.

 

I quickly looked at the Dutch squad and noticed they're nearly all based in the Prem with a few scattered around Serie A

 

I got Japan winning but I fear it's becoming a bit too popular of a pick

 

Dutch strip looks luminous

 

Bloody hell the size difference of the Netherlands and Japan.

 

I feel like Japan have entered the dangerous dark horse territory where they've become a bit overrated. They're a very solid side who can give almost anyone a game on their day, but i'd say they're still a little way of a solid top 10 side like the Netherlands.

Some of the talk about them is not befitting a side who've never made it past the RO16 and who have not improved markedly since the last world cup to justify it.

Dutch on the other hand seem to be a bit underrated. Very solid 11, if lacking the attacking quality and squad depth to probably be genuine tournament contenders. Koeman is a decent international manager also.

 

Not sure if your old enough to remember the ready brek kid.