With the double or is it triple negative, I’m treading carefully on this one. My lawyers will advise.
What a sh*t start. Enjoyed the pre tournament show with Robbie Williams, (a 10 minute sing along is fine with me), then the football started. OK, it was an entertaining game featuring 2 really bad teams, but what got me down was the obvious corporate crowd. Really bad atmosphere all the way through. Imagine that being England winning at Wembley in the World Cup, the f***ing roof would have come off. Worried.
To be fair, for Russia’s games I’d rather a corporate crowd than their usual fans being allowed in - I dare say the die-hard Russian fans would have made a few unsavoury noises towards the Saudi players. Far from being worried, I was relieved. The atmosphere will be better at other games, I have no doubt. Today was just a day/match for Putin to show off and flex his muscles and I’m pretty certain the crowd was handpicked as to avoid any sideshows developing. Did see that beer/alcohol was allowed openly in the stands though - will be interesting to see if that policy continues or was just for the opening game? Could see a few incidents if it’s an open policy.
Yeah but they would have qualified even through the normal process. Fully expecting to see Gibraltar and Hong Kong qualify.
Yeah, it occurred to me earlier in the thread. I had a look and it seems FIFA have put the issue on the agenda for a later date. Given the split of games is something like 60/10/10 in favour of the USA I'd have thought them only as auto qualifiers would be the obvious way forward. It would be a bit of a farce if Canada, who have only once qualified for a World Cup and that was 30 years ago, get in automatically because of hosting 10 games. So I fully expect FIFA to choose that option.
I don't. I think the number of teams qualifying is going up from 32 to 48? Usa and mexico will qualify anyway if you make them, Canada might if theres a growth in qualifing teams and they cant be worse than korea or congo or Saudi or Panama.
Its early and I misread your dig at FIFA, so my post above may not make sense. In short Canada will be through as host nation.
They have to be in as hosts. Hopefully after seeing how much dross will be served up in the expanded groups the tournament will revert to 32 teams which is an ideal number. Expanding it to 48 renders qualification meaningless and devalues the process. Infantino looks to be another prize pillock and egomaniac.
I'm not sure I'd be that blunt. The proposed expansion has some logic behind it - there must be 20-24 countries who routinely qualify for the World Cup. Which potentially leaves around only 10 places up for grabs for the other 180 countries in FIFA ever 4 years. Although the World Cup brings in big $$$ for all the countries in FIFA, ultimately the prestige comes from playing at the actual tournament. Personally I think the 16 extra teams should go into a further layer of qualification, which could take place in the host country immediately before the World Cup proper. A small handful could then get through to the main event. Letting them all in will certainly dilute quality but I guess that's the balance.
I fulfil the citizenship requirements, ie I can spell the name of the country correctly. Usually you just need to know its capital.
Personally I think it has to be 32 or 64 - 48 makes the group phase terrible to watch as teams play for draws. 64 teams is too many but at least you can just double the amount of groups and still make the group-phase vaguely competitive. If it’s been increased to 48 just so more teams have a chance to ‘take part’, may as well add 16 more teams on the same basis. Although it would add an extra knockout round unless just the top teams in each group goes through. Personally think it should have stayed at 32 teams.
That's good that it's stringent. I had to use your user name to get the correct spelling and would have rightly failed otherwise.
The thing that will be a real shame about the 2026 WC is that the first round group stage will be largely meaningless. In expanding the numbers to 48 FIFA will want most of the extra places to go to relative minnows from Africa and Asia, not more Europeans. So there will be more 'Saudi Arabias' in the tournament. There is going to be 16 groups of 3 teams, with 2 qualifying for the next round, and the groups will be seeded so each one will have a 'Saudi Arabia'. Of course the two other teams in each group will comfortably beat the minnow and then have a nice quiet 'friendly' in the third game knowing they have qualified, so unless there is a real major shock result there will be nothing riding on any of the group games.
Egypt v Uruguay about to kick off. I will be supporting Uruguay as they are a sister Latino country. My 8 year old, 4Cyclones, is however supporting Egypt. On the grounds that he "likes mummies and stuff".
It's the same with other countries host the Olympics, the minor sports have empty stadiums or arenas. In 2012 I don't remember seeing an empty seat.
London should hold the Olympics every time. That's clear. Christ knows why we can't get a WC. Not in most of our remaining lifetimes now I guess.
Poor 1st-half between Egypt v Uruguay. Egypt happy to try and break up play and counter but not too much quality up front. Uruguay look disjointed as soon as they get 30 yards from goal.
Now Mahmoud Hassan (Trezeguet) has taken his wrist bandage off he's indistinguishable from the rest of the dross on show. After 51mins he really does look a player over valued by a €5m buy-out clause. Early days though.
I also don’t think it helps that Russia is such a vast country and the games are spread right across it. It has 9 different time zones! Can’t be easy to traverse across a country for each game and must be an expensive business. Plus, having been there a few times, the transport isn’t the best and to get to any other city, you almost always have to go via Moscow or St.Petersburg regardless of proximity to your destination.
That was hard to watch. Still, at least there's Morocco against Iran late... oh, God this hasn't got going yet has it.
