World Cup 2026 - Time for a Dutch Trophy

Argentina could have been red carded after five minutes.

Messi made maybe a foul against Spence just before the 2-1.

 

🚨 Gianni Infantino wasn’t happy when England scored. https://t.co/gPUJW8ZdCP pic.twitter.com/Ki5q4J49VZ

— 𝐓𝐌 𝐅Ú𝐓𝐁𝐎𝐋 (@TMfutbal) July 15, 2026

Very true! You saw his face change exactly when England scored. They showed the replay here!

 

Tremendous drama tonight, but overrated England as always simply blew it with their panic, and ultra negative defensive tactics under their Overrated Manager Thomas Tuchel.

 

The strategy to protect the lead by crowding defenders in the box and hope for the best may work with many teams but not against good team or the "elite" teams. England probably thought it worked twice vs Mexico and Norway so they tried again. The opponent would try long distance shot from outside the box, find penalty/free kick or needs a perfect cross (which Argentina managed more than once). I wonder if Argentina used up all their lucks already. Spain will not play the way England does and these 2 final teams well match up. Hopefully it will be a good final without error or contronversy.

 

That Malvinas banner by Argentina is punishable. FIFA will not act, of course.

FIFA has done this in the past, also with Spain.

 

Most surprising of all was how poor England was with crosses. This used to be bread and butter for them. Argentina smelled this.

Edit: maybe a foul just before the 2-1

 

It is harder to do when your youth teams see a high turnover of personnel. Dutch teams suffer from this (and top clubs like Ajax, Feyenoord themselves are to blame).

 

So funny that you called Ajax a top club.

 

I feel like those tactics might have worked under Southgate but not Tuchel. When they wanted to, England played with a skill level and flair that I've never seen from them. Unfortunately, they turned it off at the right time against a team that, for whatever I think about them, plays and fights like a team at all times. Each Argentina player knew their role and executed it as well as could be expected. At the end of the day, England might have been the more skilled side, but Argentina was a better, more battle-tested team. And England, as they always do, choked.

 

28814

What do you mean?

 

Dutch youth teams often lose players to foreign clubs or other Dutch top clubs. There is significant turnover. This makes it harder to train in the Spanish way and foster a level of cohesion. It is too opportunistic.

 

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2026/07/15/footballs-billion-dollar-integrity-problem/

Piece on referee biases.

 

Interesting article. I read somewhere that football/soccer has the strongest home field advantage of professional sports, mostly because of the influence on the referee, whereas baseball has the weakest (though still measurable), especially with the introduction of instant replay and automated balls/strikes.

I thought these points from the article were very useful as a discussion point. Personally, I think they should do a quick check of almost any decision where the ball goes into touch, unless it's completely obvious. There are a lot of these calls the refs get wrong.

 

The final will be the first time reigning Euro Champion (least goal against=1) vs reigning South America Champion (most goals for=19). In 2017 Lionel Scaloni attended coaching courses held by the Spanish Football Federation at its academy in Las Rozas, Madrid and Luis de la Fuente was his primary instructor. Many players of these 2 teams know each other from La Liga, Ligue 1 and English Premier League clubs + those pictures of Messi and baby Yamal. These 2 national teams are interestingly intertwined, going back to the time of a player named Di Stefano, an Argentine born player but became a naturalised Spanish player.

 

Baseball has the weakest because most of the fans are either dozing or chit chatting, not shouting or singing. You need active fan involvement for home-field advantage to occur.

 

No, it's because of the nature of what officials are asked to decide upon - much of it is easily reviewable. Frankly, I'm not sure that the average MLB atmosphere is all that different from the average EPL atmosphere these days, but the effect is still pronounced. Furthermore, there are dozens of situations where a baseball atmosphere gets pretty heated, either in the playoffs or in places like Korea and Japan, and the effect is basically the same there.

 

Doping test should help answer these questions

— Ramadhir Singh (@oldtraffordroar) July 12, 2026

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122291189972191966&id=61555758986221

"What did we do to reverse his biological age? I cannot say, but we are very satisfied with the results".

It would not surprise me if this is a little bit rigged as well (just as the draw was obviously rigged). In 2022 closely aligned with Qatar (PSG), now aligned with the United States and Trumpistan.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...ld-cup-rigged-for-lionel-messi-and-argentina/

Top speed is not as high as it was in 2010 but higher than in 2014, 2018 and 2022.

Noteworthy to say the least.

 

"Galancho said: “What exactly have we done to reverse his biology? I can’t say but I’m super-contented with the result.”
[...]
In football he has created an alternative global hierarchy in which the US is an also-ran, China is absent, European powers are humiliated, and Argentina is top of the world."
https://www.ft.com/content/5918b421-187f-4dc5-8acc-b6c7d5b937cf

As someone commented below: In fact against the big 7 European powers (the five WC winners plus NL and Portugal) since 2006 when messi debuted their record is: 3 losses, 5 draws and finally a single win which took them 20yrs to finally beat one team: England this week.

No humiliation.

 

The KNVB need to make the right decision for our next Manager. Hoping and praying that Slot is going to be the choice.
Moving forward I think Oranje will learn a valuable lesson to not go out in such a feeble manner the way Koeman failed us.
I believe that the nonsensical defensive tactics, or anti football will be have proven to be disgraceful and cowardly.
We need to get back to work playing attacking football, and our players MUST be willing to fight and die for the Jersey the way Argentina is willing to.

 

I could get behind Slot as a coach. I think he got unfairly run out of Liverpool after running afoul of Salah, who FSG wrongly extended beyond his prime.

 

"In that show, virtually everything was sponsored and hardly spontaneous. For instance, the countdown to kick-off was orchestrated by the announcer and sponsored by the Saudi state oil company Aramco. And the supporters who briefly appeared on screen during the matches and cheered seemingly spontaneously right into the camera? They were whipped up by a producer. The ‘half-time show’ that will interrupt the final for 25 minutes is the climax of that spectacle.

The fact that fans often whistled and booed loudly during the mandatory water breaks was turned down on TV. Conversely, FIFA President Gianni Infantino was shown on TV once during each half if he was present at a match, whereas he was not visible on the screens in stadiums – presumably out of fear of the reactions."
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/07/1...n-toch-raakte-de-fifa-de-regie-kwijt-a4932402

 

Nice by Mbappe.

 

You mean this?

 

Hopefully never again a half-time show!