FIFA World Cup 2026 Results & Discussion Thread [R]

Perhaps I should have been more precise:
1. The ball hits the attacking player's UPPER arm.
2. The UPPER arm is at his side, in a natural position.

Therefore, by The Laws of The Game, there is no competent ref thats whistling that for handball. That's not my opinion, thats a fact as designated in The Laws.

If you disagree, feel free to scan the referee section of Bigsoccer. Those guys in that section of BS are anal about their full-throated support of refs, but most of them have blown whistles before. It is a universal agreement that there was no handball on that play.

LOL, you do you.

I make no apologies for my CLUB support. But my club isn't playing right now, so I truly do not care who wins/loses this cashgrab cup.

Those who know my work on BS know that I truly do not care about the outcomes of international tournaments. Apart from the players from my club making it back healthy and ready to play for MY team. Jingoism in sport is antiquated and dumb, TBH.

 

I don’t think it was a handball, but the upper arm stuff is a red herring. Anything below the armpit counts as arm for handball purposes.

 

I think Messi will win it again especially if Argentina wins the world cup again.He still has chances even if they lose.

 

I think one could argue that as statistics became more ingrained in the sport the award oscillated between G/A totals in juxtaposition with trophies won as opposed to how you can influence the game consistently.

Thinking about someone like Zidane, Nedved or even Buffon their contributions aren't necessarily statistically driven. It's hard to imagine truthfully any of those players winning in the modern age. So much is about numbers.

That's where the inconsistency in recent years has come in. You get players like Sneijder or Iniesta who should have won it but instead you had the Messi/Ronaldo merry go round.

The criteria is vibes based but I think it's more so now than it was before.

 

The highest place ever achieved by an Asian nation in World cup (South Korea) and African nation [Morocco] are fourth place. U.S.A placed 3rd place in 1930, albiet by some retroactive Fifa shenanigans.


So, yes. It does matter to the smaller nations. Maybe people from big footballing countries don't see the point; but for many countries even being 4th out of 36 or 48 nations in a world cup is a huge achievement! That makes it even more magnificent what Modric did with Croatia in 2 world cups.

Countries like Iceland, Norway and Cape Verde go back heroes simply by putting in a great run.

 

Well, that's not right, the positioning of the arm absolutely matters.

 

It's an interesting debate, both prescriptively, what should be the criteria, and descriptively, what has been the criteria (and how much that has changed). Here is a AI-generated table (so feel free to point out any errors you see) for the topic.

Code:

Yr   | Player                                 | EC/UCL    | WC        | Euro
-----|----------------------------------------|-----------|-----------|---------
1991 | Lothar Matthaus (Inter)                | Red Star  | -         | -
1992 | Marco van Basten (Milan / Netherlands) | Barca     | -         | Denmark
1993 | Roberto Baggio (Juventus)              | Marseille | -         | -
1994 | Romario (Barca / Brazil)               | Milan     | Brazil    | -
1995 | George Weah (PSG, Milan)               | Ajax      | -         | -
1996 | Matthias Sammer (Dortmund / Germany)   | Juventus  | -         | Germany
1997 | Ronaldo (Barca, Inter)                 | Dortmund  | -         | -
1998 | Zinedine Zidane (Juventus / France)    | RM        | France    | -
1999 | Rivaldo (Barca)                        | ManU      | -         | -
2000 | Luis Figo (Barca, RM / Portugal)       | RM        | -         | France
2001 | Michael Owen (Liverpool)               | Bayern    | -         | -
2002 | Ronaldo (Inter, RM / Brazil)           | RM        | Brazil    | -
2003 | Pavel Nedved (Juventus)                | Milan     | -         | -
2004 | Andriy Shevchenko (Milan / Ukraine)    | Porto     | -         | Greece
2005 | Ronaldinho (Barca)                     | Liverpool | -         | -
2006 | Fabio Cannavaro (Juventus, RM / Italy) | Barca     | Italy     | -
2007 | Kaka (Milan)                           | Milan     | -         | -
2008 | Cristiano Ronaldo (ManU / Portugal)    | ManU      | -         | Spain
2009 | Lionel Messi (Barca)                   | Barca     | -         | -
2010 | Lionel Messi (Barca / Argentina)       | Inter     | Spain     | -
2011 | Lionel Messi (Barca)                   | Barca     | -         | -
2012 | Lionel Messi (Barca / Argentina)       | Chelsea   | -         | Spain
2013 | Cristiano Ronaldo (RM)                 | Bayern    | -         | -
2014 | Cristiano Ronaldo (RM / Portugal)      | RM        | Germany   | -
2015 | Lionel Messi (Barca)                   | Barca     | -         | -
2016 | Cristiano Ronaldo (RM / Portugal)      | RM        | -         | Portugal
2017 | Cristiano Ronaldo (RM)                 | RM        | -         | -
2018 | Luka Modric (RM / Croatia)             | RM        | France    | -
2019 | Lionel Messi (Barca)                   | Liverpool | -         | -
2020 | No award                               | Bayern    | -         | -
2021 | Lionel Messi (Barca, PSG / Argentina)  | Chelsea   | -         | Italy*
2022 | Karim Benzema (RM / France)            | RM        | Argentina | -
2023 | Lionel Messi (PSG, Inter Miami)        | Man City  | -         | -
2024 | Rodri (Man City / Spain)               | RM        | -         | Spain
2025 | Ousmane Dembele (PSG)                  | PSG       | -         | -
2026 | Not yet awarded                        | PSG       | TBD       | -

FIFA World Player, 1991-94; Ballon d'Or, 1995-present.

*Euro 2020 was postponed and played in 2021. Italy won.

It's hard to see an obvious pattern, but I'd argue that other than Sammer in '96 and Cannavaro in '06, most instances of a player winning the award primarily due to team success at the major tournament that year has been more in recent years, e.g. Modric, Messi, Rodri, Dembele.

 

I don't agree with that analysis at all, he skips right past the first paragraph, which is the applicable one -- he did deliberately move his arm into the ball. This was not a situation that the ball was kicked at him and he did not have time to react (where you would use the natural/unnatural position analysis), it was kicked up in air and he deliberately ran and jumped straight into it, leading with his arm.

 

The manager can be the deciding factor if he selects the correct pieces and lines them up correctly on the pitch.

 

Something else I'd like to see evaluated is if the attacker gained an obvious advantage from the ball playing on their arm regardless if it was intentional or not.

 

I know which team I'm rooting for.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DascNyEAC_R/?igsh=N3MwaWw1cmlybXE4

 

Indeed.

 

Exclusive: Argentina stunned by England's tactics, esp refusal to use more pace

They'd prepared at HT for Saka/Madueke coming on

On realising Tuchel wasn't doing this, they went even more attacking, Lauturo on for Tagliafico

Huge dressing-room chathttps://t.co/B82xWn8z85

— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) July 16, 2026

 

The fact that England is taking this moron to Euro 28 means that football will never be coming home.

 

Tuchel is useless.

 

Yes, the positioning of the arm matters to decide whether it’s a handball or not.

The fact that it hit his upper arm rather than his lower arm doesn’t matter, which is why it’s a red herring.

 

Please reread the original post again. I only talked about Argentina's players.

 

Then we are in agreement.

I had made mention of the upper arm, because the attacker's lower arm was away from the body. Libertao still insists that it should have been a handball, even though pretty much everyone who follows the game agrees that it was not, including every single ref.

No red herring, I was merely being courteous to Libertao, although he's just wrong on this.

 

A nightmare final for all Madridistas imo. If Spain win, their Barca players will get even more confidence going into the next season. If Argentina win, Messi will strengthen his goat status even more. I don't like either team but I think Spain winning would be the lesser evil.