FIFA World Cup '26: News & Analysis

Who gives a shit? 7 counts of rape involving 4 different females is a big deal. He can stay TF away.

Also, he was not refused entry 1 day before. It was 5 or 6 days before.

 

We are comparing postwar reconciliation to something different. It's important not to treat this as people being upset over isolated inconveniences. For many people, discrimination is not experienced as a minor annoyance. If people feel they were profiled, treated as suspicious, or treated differently because of where they come from, that can create long-lasting resentment and distrust.

Not everyone will care and not everyone will react the same way. But assuming people who feel humiliated or targeted will simply forget because a few decades pass is also unrealistic. Memories of unequal treatment do not automatically disappear because a tournament ends.

For many countries, the national team is more than just a sports team. It carries national pride and identity. When people feel their country or representatives are treated differently, many can interpret that as a broader sign of disrespect that extends beyond the players themselves.

That's why I think there could be lasting resentment in at least the short-to-medium term. Rebuilding trust often takes time, and sometimes it also takes acknowledgement that mistakes were made.

 

Compared to WWII and the harm THAT caused compared to this, IS small apples.

England had nightly bombings and still accepted Germany to their home World Cup 21 years later.

 

The list of World Cup host country scandals is large and the visa situation won't be near the top end.

1930 - Uruguay sent soldiers to surround the field during the final with Argentina because of the tense situation. The gauchos did not feel safe at all surrounded by Uruguayans with rifles.
1934 - Italy under Mussolini. The most politically compromised WC. Multiple accusations of match rigging.
1966 - FIFA was under the leadership of Englishman Stanley Rous, a noted referee but also a racist and xenophobe. Multiple accusations of referee influence.
1974 - German newspapers laid a honey trap on Netherlands players just before the final.
1978 - A world cup under a military dictatorship. Multiple accusations of match fixing.
2002 - Multiple match fixing scandals benefitting S Korea.
2022 - An unprecedented rescheduling of the tournament when Qatar admitted that they would not be able to host in the summer.

The US issue is more along the lines of Russia in 2018. Also not on the big end of controversies.

 

This is exactly where I disagree. I'm not saying these situations are equal to WWII in scale. What I'm pushing back against is the idea that people should minimize discrimination simply because worse things happened elsewhere. This isn’t a competition about who got it worst. I'll leave it that

 

TBF, the polite disagreement is not really that. We definitely agree on that. Its whether the US loses its turn in the future. Moving on as well.

 

A lot of those things sound like conspiracy theories. If you limit it to factual events, you're left with 2022, maybe 1930, and now 2026.

 

Time will tell. That said, 1934 and 1966 is rigorously studied by historians. You can review those for yourself. There was a lot of significant fallout.

 

Absolutely agree with this take. It's just that FIFA has long ago decided that the games must go on.

 

Morocco is one of reasons why more CAF teams and AFC-Arab teams are adopting a direct style of play (or at least in Matchday 1). I don't recall a World Cup where too many teams from these regions played with courage, it's usually one or two team generations per edition. Today you see Senegal dared to challenge France, you see Algeria wanting to surprise Argentina, and Jordan wanting to beat Austria, and Iraq didn't defend vs Norway, and of course Egypt perhaps played their first forward world cup match, Cote d'Ivoire did very well. Also Saudi and Qatar and Cabo Verde did better than was expected..., even Tunisia tried to do something.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you see someone like you achieve something you always considered difficult, you begin to believe that you can do it too. before the tournament Senegal players said they're going to compete for the title, Egypt coach said they're gonna do something unprecedented, Algerians in 2022 said if they had qualified they'd go further than Morocco did. While ever since I've known football, the highest ambition of teams in the region has been to only qualify and try to get past the group stage.

Of course, some teams succeeded in delivering good matches and others did not. Perhaps they exaggerated their confidence and enthusiasm, and perhaps they do not have the quality and conditions that helped Morocco succeed recently. But in general, the courage of these teams raised the technical level of world cup matches and reduced the differences somewhat, regardless of the big results in some matches.

Finally I don't want my words (as a Moroccan) to sound arrogant, but rather a logical reading of this turning point and the circumstances in which it occurred, it can't be a coincidence that after Morocco made Semis in 2022, most underdogs started playing bravely in 2026 all of a sudden. But if African and Asian teams abandon their timidity and play with courage, we might have more than one team from this region succeeding in every edition of the World Cup, instead of waiting for rare generations to emerge here and there (AKA Cameroon 90, South Korea & Senegal 2002, Ghana 2010, Morocco 2022...). But it goes without saying that Courage alone is not enough without quality and good planning.

On a side note, one of reasons is also the possibility to qualify in 3rd place, perhaps some teams entered the first match with less pressure and greater freedom of thought because the opportunity to make up for it was possible in later matches, but this alone doesn't justify all the confidence and boldness we have recently seen from underdogs.

 

Never seen a country have so much trouble growing grass.

French and Brazilian players don't like the pitch at Metlife, site of the WC final. Also, the turf in KC stadium looked terrible just from the naked eye. But guess Messi felt right at home playing on cement.

World Cup 2026: Adrien Rabiot raises concerns about New York New Jersey Stadium pitch - BBC Sport

"The pitch... I don't even know if you can call it that. It felt more like an artificial surface - quite hard and quite rigid," Rabiot said.

"In the second half, with the heat, the pitch dries out very quickly. The game becomes very sluggish and we can't get into our rhythm," Vinicius said.

 

Yeah if they don't fix NY-NJ Stadium pitch, I'm afraid it might result in the less good looking World Cup final in modern football, which would be sad giving this edition of World Cup is quite good so far.

 

FWIW, there was apparently a five year project led by Michigan State University researchers and experts to obtain a uniform surface across all stadiums. There is also apparently objective, measurable criteria to determine success.

 

Maybe that does have a partial effect. But as I said before I think the main reason we see less small teams parking the bus and going for it is social media ("I can be number 1 mentality"- discounting the math that there can be only 1) effect and gen z difficulty with discipline and tactics and patience.

Morocco is in practice a European team, and have the talent to attack. Virtually all players are in Europe. It is not out of the usual. They are not a small team, they are a mid-top team. But even Morocco defended in 2022 (after not getting results in 2018 attacking).

I still think while good for the observer, it is silly for these teams to play like this, especially given that most 3rd place will qualify, which means playing defensive and keeping scorelines low and going for draws make more sense.

 

And FIFA expects people to pay $11,000 to watch the final match on that garbage field. My local park has a better field.

 

The field for the 1978 final was terrible.

 

But it had a lot of cool confetti on it.

 

Absolutely.

 

Just want to remind everyone again that without expansion to 48 teams we would probably not have D.R.C in this World Cup.