FIFA World Cup 2026

[mcliu]

On 7/20/2026 at 4:10 PM, Gregmal said:

The best game of the tourney by a mile was England France. The Final was a lopsided beatdown of MS13 lookalikes. What were the shots again? 20-2? Felt bad for the Argentina goalie, though...played a hell of a game, despite his teammates acting like thugs. 

I found that England-France game to be distasteful. Zero effort on both sides, especially the French.

They're playing like it was an exhibition or all-star game, rather disrespectful to their fans.

 

[dwy000]

1 minute ago, mcliu said:

I found that England-France game to be distasteful. Zero effort on both sides, especially the French.

They're playing like it was an exhibition or all-star game, rather disrespectful to their fans.

 

Everything I've read.has people thinking it was the best game of the tournament.  Maybe (probably) because there was little defense.  If that was distasteful I think a lot of fans would want there to be more distasteful games.  Theyre exciting. 

[mcliu]

14 minutes ago, dwy000 said:

Everything I've read.has people thinking it was the best game of the tournament.  Maybe (probably) because there was little defense.  If that was distasteful I think a lot of fans would want there to be more distasteful games.  Theyre exciting. 

lol everything I've read has people thinking it sucked so.. I guess it depends on what you're reading?

Also I have eyes and a brain and watched that first half.. what's so exciting about low effort?

Edited 19 hours ago by mcliu

[mcliu]

Even Rabiot thought that first half was shameful:

 

[Spekulatius]

England- France was like a for show or all star game. It wasn’t good soccer in tactical sense.

On another note, the fact that the best team may not win a soccer game is not a bug. A game would be boring if the best team were highly certain to win. It’s a feature not a bug that almost anything can happen in soccer in short period of  time and that is what makes the game interesting. 

[Gregmal]

20 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

England- France was like a for show or all star game. It wasn’t good soccer in tactical sense.

On another note, the fact that the best team may not win a soccer game is not a bug. A game would be boring if the best team were highly certain to win. It’s a feature not a bug that almost anything can happen in soccer in short period of  time and that is what makes the game interesting. 

lol well the problem is it’s boring even when that isnt the case.

[james22]

8 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

On another note, the fact that the best team may not win a soccer game is not a bug. A game would be boring if the best team were highly certain to win. It’s a feature not a bug that almost anything can happen in soccer in short period of  time and that is what makes the game interesting. 

 

I can see that.

 

I can even see we'd miss arguing over officiating calls were they automated.

 

But we should just admit it's more about entertainment then.

 

 

But would the World Cup really be less interesting if it was decided over a best of seven games series, like baseball? (Making the better team more likely the winner?)

 

[james22]

 

I remember reading a long time ago about how the World Cup team's tactics reflected their country. The Germans were methodical and precise, the Brazilians freewheeling, etc. Made it sound real interesting.

 

But if that's no longer so?

[SharperDingaan]

13 hours ago, Parsad said:

It was fun to watch, but ALOT of concussion PTSD for these players...even ones that didn't fight and just got clobbered by open ice, full-speed hits, boarding hits, etc.  We didn't understand the mental health issues these athletes were experiencing because fans were thoroughly entertained.  The sport today is much safer for these athletes.  Cheers!

 

The reality though, is that the physical is part of the game ... whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

 

The obvious solution is similar to the football Yellow and Red Card system. Yellow Card to a player if more than X minutes of penalties a game, thrown out of the game on the 2nd Yellow Card. Cumulative Yellow Card time per season more than Y minutes, an instant Red Card and thrown out for the rest of the season, including the Stanley Cup.

 

Medical science informing what the Y limit maximum is; NHL sets the Red Card limit at maybe 60% of the limit, decides on how many Yellow Cards can be accumulated over a season; players encouraged to continue donating their brains to medical science as time goes on.

 

SD 

Edited 6 hours ago by SharperDingaan

[John Hjorth]

5 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

... Medical science informing what the Y limit maximum is; NHL sets the Red Card limit at maybe 60% of the limit, decides on how many Yellow Cards can be accumulated over a season; players encouraged to continue donating their brains to medical science as time goes on.

 

SD 

 

HaHa!  - Better entertaiment than the football played!