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World Cup 2026 - USA/Canada/Mexico

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Comments

  • CAFCTrev
    CAFCTrev Posts: 6,459
    .....aaaand there it is. Game over. 
  • DamoNorthStand
    DamoNorthStand Posts: 12,996
    Oh fuck off you spawny pricks 
  • SDAddick
    SDAddick Posts: 15,017
    Balls 
  • DamoNorthStand
    DamoNorthStand Posts: 12,996
    PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let us neutralise the guaranteed cheating and FIFA bollocks and send this filth home 
  • Rock Spectacle
    Rock Spectacle Posts: 1,641
    Bollix 
  • SDAddick
    SDAddick Posts: 15,017
    It's a lovely goal 
  • Exiled_Addick
    Exiled_Addick Posts: 17,897

  • aliwibble
    aliwibble Posts: 29,677
    edited July 12
    It would be very funny if one of  the Argentinians got a ban for a second yellow for the celebration.
  • Exiled_Addick
    Exiled_Addick Posts: 17,897
    aliwibble said:
    It would be very funny if one of  the Argentinians got a ban for a second yellow for the celebration.
    FIFA would just find some obscure rule that means it allows Argentina to have an  extra player in the next match. 
  • CAFCTrev
    CAFCTrev Posts: 6,459
    Red card changed the game unfortunately, the Swiss were on top up to that point. 

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  • CAFCTrev
    CAFCTrev Posts: 6,459
    Right bed time!
  • Laddick01
    Laddick01 Posts: 8,476
    Finish it off with one of the ugliest counter attacking goals you’ll ever see.

    Switzerland have thrown that away with the sending off.


  • Rock Spectacle
    Rock Spectacle Posts: 1,641
    Sleepless night working out fantasy team
  • Callumcafc
    Callumcafc Posts: 66,926
    edited July 12
    Betfair odds for the last four, to win the tournament

    France 2.64 (13/8)
    Spain 4.6 (7/2)
    England 4.7 (7/2)
    Argentina 5.0 (4/1)
  • Quite thought provoking with the four top seeds making the semi finals.

    https://www.2oceansvibe.com/sport/fifa-world-cup-seeding-rigging-accusation-july-2026/



    In November 2025, FIFA announced a tennis-style seeding system for its expanded 48-team tournament. The top four ranked sides would be split into separate brackets, guaranteeing they could not face each other until the semi-finals. Spain and Argentina, seeds one and two, landed in opposite halves of the draw. France and England, three and four, were paired the same way.

    FIFA said the change was about “ensuring competitive balance,” which is a generous description of a system that keeps your biggest commercial draws from knocking each other out early.

    The protection was conditional on each seed winning their group. All four did, and the quarter-final lineup reads like a broadcast executive’s wishlist: Spain versus Belgium, Argentina versus Switzerland, France versus Morocco, England versus Norway.

    Should the favourites hold serve, the semi-finals deliver Spain versus France and Argentina versus England. Two blockbuster ties between the four names the tournament was built to protect.

  • The Red Robin
    The Red Robin Posts: 28,425
    Why wasn’t Martinez given a second yellow for leaving the pitch when celebrating their third?
  • killerandflash
    killerandflash Posts: 72,819
    Why wasn’t Martinez given a second yellow for leaving the pitch when celebrating their third?
    I'm pretty sure nobody has been booked for leaving the pitch in this WC.

    TV LOVES such scenes anyway.
  • DamoNorthStand
    DamoNorthStand Posts: 12,996
    edited July 12
    Social media already speculating what this lot will get up to in the semi final. Cheating, trying to get someone sent off, foul play. 

    It’s just what they do. The biggest challenge will be getting past that because football wise we are clearly better than them.

    France would be another matter but don’t need  to worry about that at the moment.

    On Weds it’s gonna be Argies doing Argies things and we need to be ready for it 
  • The Red Robin
    The Red Robin Posts: 28,425
    I assume it’s the Messi factor but never understand why so many neutrals love Argentina and we’re the villains. They’re a bunch of cheats. Always have been, always will be. 
  • Charlton and on
    Charlton and on Posts: 1,170
    I assume it’s the Messi factor but never understand why so many neutrals love Argentina and we’re the villains. They’re a bunch of cheats. Always have been, always will be. 
    I think the tide turned on that after Egypt

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  • Quite thought provoking with the four top seeds making the semi finals.

    https://www.2oceansvibe.com/sport/fifa-world-cup-seeding-rigging-accusation-july-2026/



    In November 2025, FIFA announced a tennis-style seeding system for its expanded 48-team tournament. The top four ranked sides would be split into separate brackets, guaranteeing they could not face each other until the semi-finals. Spain and Argentina, seeds one and two, landed in opposite halves of the draw. France and England, three and four, were paired the same way.

    FIFA said the change was about “ensuring competitive balance,” which is a generous description of a system that keeps your biggest commercial draws from knocking each other out early.

    The protection was conditional on each seed winning their group. All four did, and the quarter-final lineup reads like a broadcast executive’s wishlist: Spain versus Belgium, Argentina versus Switzerland, France versus Morocco, England versus Norway.

    Should the favourites hold serve, the semi-finals deliver Spain versus France and Argentina versus England. Two blockbuster ties between the four names the tournament was built to protect.

    I don't see too much wrong with that: seems to work well in tennis.
  • DamoNorthStand
    DamoNorthStand Posts: 12,996
    Social media already speculating what this lot will get up to in the semi final. Cheating, trying to get someone sent off, foul play. 

    It’s just what they do. The biggest challenge will be getting past that because football wise we are clearly better than them.

    France would be another matter but don’t need  to worry about that at the moment.

    On Weds it’s gonna be Argies doing Argies things and we need to be ready for it 

    Just looking at the official Argies Instagram page announcing the England game.

    Almost every post from them is Falklands, Falklands, Falklands. Our players are clearly gonna be turning up just to play a football match in a football tournament.

    This lot are fucking obsessed and it’s the main driver behind the cheating that’s to come.
  • Chris_from_Sidcup
    Chris_from_Sidcup Posts: 37,636
    Why wasn’t Martinez given a second yellow for leaving the pitch when celebrating their third?
    I'm not sure they're booking players for that now.

    The Cape Verde guy who scored that banger v Argentina climbed into the crowd and stood there waiting about 2 minutes for his girlfriend, and he didn't even get booked.
  • fenaddick
    fenaddick Posts: 21,081
    edited July 12
    That Embolo second yellow is the most obvious booking imaginable. Why on earth would you dive like that if you knew you were on a yellow card and VAR will check it?
  • se9addick
    se9addick Posts: 33,117
    Social media already speculating what this lot will get up to in the semi final. Cheating, trying to get someone sent off, foul play. 

    It’s just what they do. The biggest challenge will be getting past that because football wise we are clearly better than them.

    France would be another matter but don’t need  to worry about that at the moment.

    On Weds it’s gonna be Argies doing Argies things and we need to be ready for it 

    Just looking at the official Argies Instagram page announcing the England game.

    Almost every post from them is Falklands, Falklands, Falklands. Our players are clearly gonna be turning up just to play a football match in a football tournament.

    This lot are fucking obsessed and it’s the main driver behind the cheating that’s to come.
    Yeah this is what I mentioned last week. Probably hard to comprehend for us Brits how big the Falklands seem to be for them. 

    se9addick said:
    se9addick said:
    fenaddick said:
    fenaddick said:
    That is pretty crazy, i mean how far do you go back before deciding it doesn't really matter? Oliver probably wasn't even alive when the Falklands war took place.
    I suspect these two stories contribute

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2026/07/08/watch-argentina-players-taunt-england-with-falklands-chant/

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28498909

    In my lifetime, it is probably by far the most emotive of football rivalries but then again I was alive for the Falklands, Hand of God, Simeone etc...... ask my 18 year old son and he doesnt get the Argie hate.
    I'm 27 and I don't really get it either but for me international football doesn't really need rivalries anyway. That said, I understand why Côte d'Ivoire might have extra motivation to beat France etc. 
    I don’t really get it either (but I wasn’t born when the Falklands took place). I understand it’s a waaaaaay bigger thing in Argentina than it is here though. 
    Understand from who? Do you know anybody in Argentina? If you weren’t born when the Falklands Malvinas war took place, don’t you think this is true for many Argentinians? Don’t you also think that many Argentinians were against the government that started the war?

    Of course there remains a rivalry but I think people want to exaggerate it by going back to this conflict which most Argentinians consider a folly by the dictatorship. Don’t forget that people generally are against dictatorships in their own country. 

    That said, most Argentinians think that the Malvinas should belong to them, and I agree with them.
    I mean it’s plainly a bigger thing for Argentinians than it is for English people:

    - it’s relatively recent that Argentinian players held a “Malvinas son Argentinos” flag before a game 
    - the Falkland Islands feature on Argentinian currency alongside some 
    - there’s some sort of song/hymn that kids sing at school which refers to the islands. I believe signing this hymn is actually a legal requirement in some parts of Argentina. 
    - Argentina fans still have songs about hating the English originating from Falklands stuff that they sing to this day.

    Absolutely none of this stuff occurs in England and anyone who got particularly het up about the Falklands here would appear demented. Doesn’t mean that every Argentinian person spends all day thinking about the Falklands and the injustice of them not being in Argentinian hands, I agree that most done. But clearly it’s a much more prominent feature of Argentine society than it is English. 



  • CaptainRobbo
    CaptainRobbo Posts: 2,477
    fenaddick said:
    That Embolo second yellow is the most obvious booking imaginable. Why on earth would you dive like that if you knew you were on a yellow card and VAR will check it?
    Especially against the Argies.
    The VAR  team were wearing their "Give the Malvinas back" t-shirts.
  • killerandflash
    killerandflash Posts: 72,819
    fenaddick said:
    That Embolo second yellow is the most obvious booking imaginable. Why on earth would you dive like that if you knew you were on a yellow card and VAR will check it?
    Maybe he thought Infantino would overturn it, but unfortunately for Embolo, Infantino doesn't give his native country special favours  ;)
  • CaptainRobbo
    CaptainRobbo Posts: 2,477
    fenaddick said:
    That Embolo second yellow is the most obvious booking imaginable. Why on earth would you dive like that if you knew you were on a yellow card and VAR will check it?
    Maybe he thought Infantino would overturn it, but unfortunately for Embolo, Infantino doesn't give his native country special favours  ;)
    Oh for the good old days under "Honest" Sepp Blatter.
  • robroy
    robroy Posts: 4,862
    Have a watch of this. 


    One for the conspiracy theory 😉😂
  • killerandflash
    killerandflash Posts: 72,819
    Looking at the 4 semi-finalists, you have one team (France) who have cruised through, playing some really good football, but none of the other 3 have been reached their full potential.

    It'll be interesting if we are able to raise our game in the SF (and hopefully final) but the same can be said for Spain and Argentina.