French football gets political again. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-party-national-rally-kylian-mbappe-criticism Be interesting to see if Mbappe and/or other players does retire early from international football after next year’s French elections. Deschamps and then Zidane are going to have to navigate these issues on top of coaching the team.
Sportbladet is saying that Roony Bardghji was left out of the World Cup squad because of a situation that happened after the team qualified for the World Cup. They're saying that when the players gathered at the hotel to celebrate the qualification, Roony Bardghji wasn't on his… pic.twitter.com/QdfI3BONj7— 🇸🇪 (@SwedeStats) May 13, 2026
I could be talking absolute bollocks here as you only hear things in the news/social media so don’t really know how bad it is but I know you live over there however would this whole ICE issue maybe swing things in Mexico’s favour with securing duals who maybe feeling lost in the US system?
That's a good question. It seems some of the recent ones who have switched maybe feel like they weren't getting an opportunity. Not all that sure though. Obviously there are ones like Pepi who opted for the US
That’s true but didn’t he declare before all the ICE drama started even though under Trumps first term he was targeting immigrants so it’s probably not that he wasn’t aware of the situation.
Why would they retire. If anything they would want to play as much as possible so they can be prominent figures against the NF.
One of the French team said in 2024 they didn’t know if they could represent a country who they felt had voted against them,
Dutch supporters in full fashion. Texas 🤝 NetherlandsThe famous Dutch Orange Bus has touched down in Texas to get ready to support Netherlands this summer for the 2026 FIFA World Cup 🇳🇱(via @FWC26Houston) pic.twitter.com/u3qPZmstSe— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 12, 2026
French squad tomorrow night. This is apparently what it will be. 🚨🚨 Voici les 26 joueurs que Didier Deschamps 🇫🇷 devrait appeler pour le Mondial !GARDIENS👉 Mike Maignan👉 Robin Risser (favori)👉 Brice SambaDÉFENSEURS👉 Lucas Digne👉 Malo Gusto👉 Lucas Hernandez👉 Theo Hernandez👉 Ibrahima Konaté👉 Jules Koundé👉 William Saliba… pic.twitter.com/dFyHgBVkmB— Actu Foot (@ActuFoot_) May 13, 2026
If that is the France squad that's pretty much exactly how you'd want to structure a World Cup squad imo. Two players per position in defence and midfield while all of your floater/wildcard options are attackers with X-factor and game changing potential. Most other nations don't really have the means to do that, but if you can do it it's a massive luxury.
New Zealand squad - Introducing the squad to represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the FIFA World Cup 2026 🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/CiHjKx56Bw— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) May 13, 2026
Played in the same England U17 team as Danny Welbeck. Now going to another World Cup with New Zealand. National League representation at the World Cup! 🏆🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/QNrAuh9YL6— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) May 14, 2026
🚨 BREAKING: Carlo Ancelotti signs new long term deal with Brazil to lead the Seleção to the next two World Cups. ✍🏼🇧🇷Ancelotti puts pen to paper on deal until July 2030, another World Cup with Brazil planned following the upcoming one. pic.twitter.com/9uzcWqRmQL— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) May 14, 2026
🚨 OFFICIAL: France World Cup final squad. 🇫🇷Any changes you’d make? 🏆👀 pic.twitter.com/46f3BD3AoN— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) May 14, 2026 🚨🇫🇷 Eduardo Camavinga has been left OUT of France World Cup squad. ❌ pic.twitter.com/zYjwO5U8wt— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) May 14, 2026 🚨❌ Didier Deschamps: “Camavinga out of the World Cup squad? He's coming out of a hard season, where he didn't play much, with a lot of injuries”.He's still young. I have choices to make, a structure for my list”. pic.twitter.com/RWTh4mUmGz— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) May 14, 2026
The French squad is insanely strong but the midfield is full of hard working battlers. France will probably have a few high scoring games
Full backs are the biggest weakness in their squad. That might be the case with quite a lot of squads.
Looking at their squad, shows we are miles behind them. To even have a chance of winning the world cup we'd probably have to beat them along the way. It's depressing how much better they are on paper than us. I wouldn’t bet a fiver on us beating them. Also deschamps had a set group of players. I'm still shitting myself at who tuchel is going to pick a week tomorrow. He's taken a scattergun approach so far.
The only noticeable thing about this French squad is outside of mbappe there aren't too many goals. Similar to us
France are perhaps the interesting side to keep an eye on given how much they have changed, they've traditionally been a conservative side under Deschamps but after Euro 2024 and their struggles to score he's been putting out much more attacking line ups, and this squad is very much built to be much of the same. It's a frightening attack although they got absolutely taken apart by Spain last year in the Nations League, the 5-4 end result added a lot of gloss to them going 5-0 down so very much all options open. It's been a common complaint that Deschamps has been holding the teams abilities back as manager by his conservative style, so I guess this'll be an interesting case study to cap off his time as manager.
He has nothing to lose. He going after this so I'm guessing he'll let the reigns off. Wish Southgate had done that at euro 2024