World Cup injury crisis alarms major nations

It is going to be a battle of attrition. Longest tournament in history. Most travel in history. Probably the worst weather in history.
Whoever wins this World Cup will be the team that finds a way to mange all of these things and just find ways to survive and advance.

 

They really should look at shortening the club season and club competitions in world cup years.

 

100%

 

All these injuries means France in the Final again lol with their super stacked bench

 

The bench that got outplayed by Ivory Coast ?

France are my favorite to win, but its not that simple. Anything can happen.

 

France +4500 to finish last in group

 

Had to take that bet haha

 

Anything...THAT'S what I love about World Cup!

 

My worry is that this does not sound like an entertaining watch. Hopefully I’m wrong.

 

While I like the idea of top flights being limited to 18 teams (=34 league matches per season) and one domestic cup competition (like France). we all know that if UEFA installs these limits to shorten the club season, FIFA would just use it as an excuse to create another new national team-competition or further bloat the existing ones.

Also, I'm not sure how it would work in practice if you had shorter club competitions only in WC years. But even if there was a simple way of implementing that, I don't like having different club competitions formats every season, especially given <0.5% of professional players actually play in the World Cup.

 

It depends. There could be some major upsets and teams that come out of nowhere to win. That can be VERY entertaining to watch.

 

Hopefully with the increased field we going World Series of Poker style... New winners all the time. For sure the upsets are going to increase. It's gonna be wild this summer

 

Upsets may increase given the # of matches, but I don't expect as many surprises in terms of good teams failing to reach the knockout stage. For the latter, the most I could see happening is a Norway or Ecuador failing to progress. Although, that doesn't register very high on the surprise scale.

For a moment I considered Holland a possibility to be ousted in the group stage, but Sweden just looks so poor atm.

 

Speaking of the Netherlands, now Timber has officially been ruled out of the WC as well.

The Dutch are in some trouble, I feel

 

Meanwhile, Argentina saying Messi is available for tonight's friendly against Iceland. I wonder if they're caving to pressure because the match is being played in one of those huge college football stadiums in Alabama. Capacity is 88,000 although I have no idea if its a sellout. It would be pretty remarkable if it is. I mean, a friendly against Iceland....

 

It's FIFA which needlessly expanded its competitions.

You can't expect club football - the lifeblood of the game - to bend to FIFA's expansionism which is incidentally subject to legal challenges by European Leagues and FIFPRO Europe.

 

The EUROS has always been more entertaining than the WC when it comes to NT football.

 

It would benefit the vast majority if every domestic premier league was limited to 18 clubs but it would require FIFA to instigate an initiative to form a general consensus to achieve it.

 

This has nothing to do with FIFA expansion. Whether it 32 or 48 teams, the club seasons should be reduced in WC years.

 

LMFAO.

 

It's not practicable to truncate club football once every four years.