World Cup 2026 - Official Thread

Forest have had some legendary Argentinian players - Nico, Gino, Gonzo, Claudio.
Forest have had zero Egyptian players. And Salah is a bindipper. No contest.

True but Salah is no longer going to be a bin dipper and Dom wasn't put in the squad which is bullshit. Hand of God. Falkllands. Cheating tactics. Messi being a twat against the dutch and spitting also being best friends with Suarez (the total tit of the bin dippers). It all evens out.

I have been to Argentina twice/. My wife and I tried to tango in Bueno Aires (boring city by the way apart from the Boca area) and I fucked up a laughed. An old couple tried to hit me with a wine bottle. I laughed again until the old cunts surrounded us. I explained if they were going to attack me with wine bottles then they should use a decent vintage. Mardy cunts.

Anyway, it doesn't take away from the fact that Egypt were hard done by unless you don't like Darkies and you vote reform...

Chicago: Traveling Man.

I was intrigued by the fact that I could not name one black Argentinian player, past or present so I did a bit of amateur sleuthing.

Turns out they’ve been racist for years and almost eradicated any Afro or indigenous population over the last 150years. Bred out or bountied out. From 35% to 0.5%. They also have a proud fascist history

Vargentina are racists cunts. They see cheating as some sort of victory. They hate the English and see themselves as better than any of the other Latam countries.

I’m happy to be an Argentine-racist.

Enjoying the American copium that goes along the lines of "if we directed all our elite athletes into football (soccer) for 4 years, we'd easily win this world cup thing". Ignoring the fact that every player at the world cup has had a ball at their feet most days since they could walk and that's an essential part of the reason they are elite.

If they want to get competitive, that's the fix they need to make and they, quite obviously, won't.

It's the biggest participation sport among American kids, so it's not an issue of growing up with a ball at their feet. But when kids get to high school soccer is primarily seen as a sport for girls, with gridiron football, baseball and basketball being the big draws. So they're not entirely wrong, they're probably two World Cups away from being able to produce a truly competitive team if they as a nation were willing and able to focus on it. Which they aren't, so they'll continue much as they are now for the foreseeable future.

Point being that they stop (what age is high school? presumably well after the age that anyone showing a reasonable level of talent has been sucked into an academy here?). Also do they have the same culture of "jumpers for goalposts"? (Do we?)

China and Nigeria will be elite competitive teams before they are.

I think most boys showing any kind of athletic prowess are largely funneled into a sport by 10 or 11, I'm not sure what age Academy enrolment in England begins.

And yes, of course there's that same culture although I feel like it's more built around baseball and basketball; soccer is more of an organized rec sport. But that doesn't mean that kids who play organized soccer don't spend hours a day kicking a ball with friends or off a wall.

I may be missing something more obvious, but I'm not sure Gino Padula can be considered legendary.

Though odd that I can remember him, but look back at a team from 2019 and half the players weren't real.

Edit: Checked back to the 2019 squad. Claudio Yacob, Argentine legend?

I did think under Pocchetino, they were beginning to play proper football. Previously even open play was a structured “play.” When I played in the US many years ago, they were very structured.

I think they will continue to improve. But they need to be realistic and not wet their pants any time they win a game and believe they will win the whole thing.

Oh. And they need better songs.

According to Tifo, US soccer development also has an issue, among other things, of "pay to play"

Also, just caught up with the latest match. SUI doing their tediously predictable act of reducing a knockout game to their level of mediocrity (albeit Colombia didn't help themselves), and denying the next round fixture that most of the world wanted to see.

I can believe that. If a kid has the willingness to mix it up a bit, they're probably getting tapped up early to play something more prestigious. Which would leave many of the kids playing soccer as not necessarily less athletic, but perhaps less physical.

Muswell can probably tell you much more detail around that, but there's definitely a concept in North American kids' sport of teams paying to bring in good coaches to build elite teams which ostensibly produce the best players, but also mean that only the kids with wealthy enough parents to pay large subs to cover the coaching costs can join them. We definitely have that problem in hockey which is a viciously expensive sport to play in the first place, given the cost of equipment and ice time before you even get to team subs. Hence why it's overwhelmingly played by kids from white middle class families.

Omar Marmoush is sad.

It's why so many rugby players fail to adapt to NFL. Those who have grown up in the US are so used to playbooks they just absorb them. It doesn't come naturally to those not brought up in that environment. Off the cuff is frowned on, well unless it comes off. Maybe it's a manifestation of this that you witnessed.