Why is pickford so disrespected? There's a poll on BBC as to the world's best keeper. He's not on the list but keepers like maignon are. Pickford has been one of the best tournament keepers in the last 10 years
Because he looks like if he wasn't playing football he'd be hanging around Sunderland city centre asking people if they have 20p for the bus fare home.
I've never seen a team like this Barca side. Second season in a row they're about to be knocked out by a team they're blatantly better than and have dominated because their players consistently make brain dead individual errors.
Didn't watch Liverpool but sounds like they got slaughtered. Three shots on goal and 26% possession in a Champions League game is pathetic for a club of their size, even though this PSG side are very good.
They played a 523 and got ran all over the place. Ronny Rosenthal would have had more goal threat it has to be the worst Liverpool attack I've ever seen.
Slot will be gone in the summer. He rode on the back of klopp's success. As soon as he had to build his own team, he's flopped. Too many players that aren't quite up to it. Frimpong looks bang average. Wirtz has found being at a. Club that expects success to much on his shoulders. Isak has been a disaster. Etekite has been the only big summer success. Kerkhez looks suspect. Then again I don't think Robertson is any better. Talk of olise coming in the summer is delulu land. Also van diik looks finished at the top
🚨⭐️ EXCL: Manchester City join the race with Bundesliga and Premier League clubs for German gem Kennet Eichhorn.16 year old talent seen as interesting profile with Man City, one more PL club and Bundesliga giants on it.One to watch in next months. 🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/ouCPG2ZyVo— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 8, 2026 Not 18 until July 2027 so surely cant move to the PL till then.
🚨🚨| OFFICIAL: Andy Robertson will 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄 Liverpool at the end of this season. pic.twitter.com/db3lTuBwpW— CentreGoals. (@centregoals) April 9, 2026
Gianni Infantino has been backed for re-election as FIFA president for a further four years by the entirety of the Conmebol council — making the South American football confederation the first to publicly call for another term of Infantino.Infantino, 56, is yet to publicly or… pic.twitter.com/4uQ50ILpCR— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 9, 2026
Gianni Infantino. Peace Prize. Sky high tickets. Some fans may have had enough. But federations? They can’t get enough. South American confederation Conmebol call for four more years of Gianni - without him even formally declaring he is standing yet.https://t.co/RbuAm0QsWF— Adam Crafton (@AdamCrafton_) April 9, 2026 Corruption in FIFA! Why can’t this organisation be taken seriously! Fleece the fans but some regional presidents are getting rich no doubt and love the cringe leader.
Gabriele Marcotti pointed out that is all a non-starter as it would violate EU law. If a third of the places are nowhere near enough, how many do UEFA demand, half? Makes you long for return of Blatter. 🚨💣 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐕𝐄: FIFA is now seriously considering to make the 2030 tournament a 64-team tournament.Discussions are ongoing internally, with the idea gaining traction despite concerns over scheduling and player workload.Nothing is final yet, but momentum is building. pic.twitter.com/hUwKovBFMY— The Touchline | 𝐓 (@TouchlineX) April 2, 2026 Infantino expanding the World Cup again so they can make even more money and it becomes almost impossible not to qualify. No doubt lots of votes that way...
I'm not at all a fan of the 48 team world cup, its a real mess and dilution of quality. But a 64 team probably makes more sense and doesn't lead to any extra games. It would further dilute the quality of the group stage (which could be mitigated if they leaned more heavily on giving a lot more European places, but that won't happen), but that's already pretty dead, and it does remove the problems that best 3rd place qualifiers introduce to tournaments. They really should overhaul the qualification process though if they do, something like the teams who make the last 16 automatically qualify for the next tournament, similar to how the Rugby World Cup works. Similarly, the Euro's would be better off expanding to 32 teams and then reforming the qualification with automatic qualifiers rather than the half way house they have now.
The problem with automatic qualification is it would then mean the best teams would possibly have a lot more friendlies to play. Considering how unpopular friendlies and even the Nations League are with a lot of people I’m not sure that would be optimal. Windows of only Friendlies are ripe for the PFA to consider arranging a strike. With how players play all over it wouldn’t be viable to have windows where only some teams play and not others. PL clubs wouldn’t let players miss games if the PL is playing but the lesser teams of the world are playing qualifiers and having international windows jsut for lesser teams looks stupid. Rugby doesn’t have those issues due to a very different scheduling.
You could easily just switch the qualifiers to the Nations League style tournaments. If you did the the top 16 of the world cup auto qualify for example you could have a nations league style tournament in place of qualification for them, which would be much more higher quality and interest games between tournaments. You can't tell me people wouldn't prefer to see England play against the teams who were top 16 last world cup compared to the group we just had.... Nations League is no more unpopular than qualifiers with people anyway, and indeed most the people who don't like the Nations League are almost always people who don't like international football. The Nations League has been a resounding success outside of England.
I think UEFA and FIfA will switch to that type of qualifying eventually but without any automatic spots. Automatic spots would probably be easier to manage if it was the Euros having them rather than the World Cup where it would end up with a couple of African and Asian teams for example having nothing to play for because only 1 or 2 made it to the top 16 and secured a spot. Unfortunately putting the Nations League on Sky in 2018 and 2020 followed by the mess of 2022 has permanently damaged the Nations League reputation in England. It is more unpopular than qualifiers - comments saying keep qualifiers, axe friendlies and nations league are common. The 4 match 2 week window this autumn even with the top fixture list is going to quite unpopular online.