FIFA 2026 General

[Artaxerxes II]

Post whatever you feel like about this year’s world soccer championship

[CantChainTheSpirit]

It isn't off to a great start.

There are so many negative news stories about this world cup and the organisation around it.
It was pretty bad when Saudi Arabia had it but that was nothing like this world cup.

Teams struggling to get players and their staff into the US, intimidation of teams and fans, crazy ticket pricing, people struggling to find reasonable accommoration or transport between venues.

Mexico is smashing it though, everyone's already in a party mood there.

I'm hoping once the games start that people will start to enjoy themselves but if people can't ever get to games and if teams are not being treated fairly then I think this could become the first lame duck tournament. Hopefully not.

[Artaxerxes II]

We're in the knockout stage of the world championship, and I've got to say that Ronaldo, Messi and Mbappe have been amazing, but moreso Messi who seems to be literally built for football/soccer. If Mbappe steps up on his tactics and handling of the ball he might match or even exceed Ronald and Messi. But Ronaldo still has much of his talent in spite of his age. Sad that this might be the last play in his entire career, a glorious one to boot.

We've also got a record-breaking number of African teams entering past the group stage preliminaries.

I'm not sure how to feel about Germany losing to Paraguay tbh, although can't say much as I'm neither from those countries.

I think it's sad that Iran couldn't get in considering all the BS the team had to put up with (like having to travel back and forth from Mexico to the USA because of Trump's forever war). Oh well, at least Italy did give them a chance out of sportsmanship when they could have easily taken US offers to enter the championship in Iran's place.

But what few aren't talking about is the dark horse that has been Morocco, and much of its success can be attributed to the Moroccan government recruiting Moroccan athletes born in Europe, such as the Netherlands.