2026 World Cup Thread

Reminds me of Pasadena running out of beer the first time the Badgers went to the Rose Bowl under Alvarez.
What a fun group of fans.

Would be great if there team had a good showing.
 


Pulisic out
given how qualifying works and that we have a great GD, I would sit him for each of the next 2 and try get him as healthy as you can for the knockouts given Paraguay will finish last and we can settle in defensively enough against Australia to try at least draw. Joy of the schedule now is if he sits he's going to get like 3 weeks off to heal up.

Draw today and it's basically locked you're moving on (like 99.8% likely which is closer to 100 given the GD)
 

I may have to watch the US games on mute going forward.

Will be very curious to see Pochs style in the knockouts. Really good win today provided they avoid a complete meltdown
 

First time since 1930 that the U.S. has won consecutive World Cup games.

Go USA!!
 


I saw the AU USA score! US wins! Congrats to the boys of the red white and blue for winning the World Cup!!!!
 



Excuse me, but I never played soccer. At the end of 90 minutes when a side ref holds up the electronic board to indicate the amount of stoppage time, is it conventional to light a red or green number? I know that it makes no differece, just curious.
 









Just read this thread. For all the "no one's going to come to the games" posters, this World Cup will have nearly twice the number of fans as the last one, and over three times the amount of ticket revenue. Way more fans, who are paying higher ticket prices.
 

In today's games, we want the Qatar vs Bosnia game to not end in a tie. Whichever team wins is the team we'll most likely end up playing in the next round (which I'm hoping is Qatar) with a nice path for future games. If it's a tie, then everything shifts. Also, any of the following players who pick up a yellow (or red) card will not be able to play the game vs the U.S. So, to make our round of 32 as easy as possible, we want either team to win and for some of the listed players to pick up a card.

Bosnia
  • Amar Dedić
  • Nikola Katić
  • Jovo Lukić
  • Ermedin Demirović
Qatar
  • Jassem Gaber
  • Mahmoud Abunada
  • Ahmed Fathy
 
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And for those who don't really follow the details, our Thursday game has zero bearing on anything. We've already won our group and Turkey is already eliminated from moving on, so winning or losing doesn't impact the standings at all. We will most likely sit all four of our players who already have a yellow card: Tyler Adams, Folarin Balogun, Chris Richards, and Antonee Robinson, and play this game with a very different set of starters. For sure I'd also sit Ream (the oldest guy on our team), so that means at least five new starters.
 


And for those who don't really follow the details, our Thursday game has zero bearing on anything. We've already won our group and Turkey is already eliminated from moving on, so winning or losing doesn't impact the standings at all. We will most likely sit all four of our players who already have a yellow card: Tyler Adams, Folarin Balogun, Chris Richards, and Antonee Robinson, and play this game with a very different set of starters. For sure I'd also sit Ream (the oldest guy on our team), so that means at least five new starters.
It also gives Pulisic extended recovery time on his calf injury although I'm still concerned because that type of issue takes time to heal and can easily be reaggravated.
 


It also gives Pulisic extended recovery time on his calf injury although I'm still concerned because that type of issue takes time to heal and can easily be reaggravated.
I expect Pulisic to play about 20 minutes just to get some touches in a game, but that totally depends on how much he's healed. If he plays, it would be towards the end of the game. Again, for those of you who don't follow soccer, in WC games each team has a total of five subs (six in certain situations), and when you sub out, you cannot go back into the game.
 

I expect Pulisic to play about 20 minutes just to get some touches in a game, but that totally depends on how much he's healed. If he plays, it would be towards the end of the game. Again, for those of you who don't follow soccer, in WC games each team has a total of five subs (six in certain situations), and when you sub out, you cannot go back into the game.
You could be right but I still think it would be careless to have him play against hard tackling team with nothing to play for.

It should be a great opportunity for Poch to use all of our subs to get some of the younger guys CAPS and experience but he does like to win at all cost as a Manager. I do like that about him, though.

How do rate Norway's chances to reach the Final 8? Haaland is on a mission and their backline play has been stellar.
 


You could be right but I still think it would be careless to have him play against hard tackling team with nothing to play for.

It should be a great opportunity for Poch to use all of our subs to get some of the younger guys CAPS and experience but he does like to win at all cost as a Manager. I do like that about him, though.

How do rate Norway's chances to reach the Final 8? Haaland is on a mission and their backline play has been stellar.
Guess I've bet on Norway winning it all. Specifically, I have a bet with a friend where he took English/Spain/France to win and I have the rest of the field. Outside of that, I think France does end up winning it all, their second string of subs could beat pretty much any team in the field.

And for Norway, it's nice that they've bought into our Row-the-Boat.

 

Just read this thread. For all the "no one's going to come to the games" posters, this World Cup will have nearly twice the number of fans as the last one, and over three times the amount of ticket revenue. Way more fans, who are paying higher ticket prices.

How much of that is due to increasing the field from 32 to 48 as well as doubling the knockout round from 16 to 32?

2022 World Cup = 64 matches
2026 World Cup = 104 matches
 
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Rarely watch soccer and I watched the second half of the USA match and they lose in the last seconds to Turkey. WTF
 

Was one of the worst officiated games I’ve seen in quite some time both directions, but especially in the midfield against the us strikers. The push not to use their cards from these refs is leading to so damn much clutching and grabbing and tac fouling it’s just a really poor watch. The whole push to “let the game flow” leads to way more ugly soccer
 

For those that don’t follow the US team much, in this game we played our B team, whereas Turkey used their best players. The game meant nothing to us, so our starters rested and our coach found out who he could count as subs in future matches. Prior to this game we already knew we won the bracket and will be playing Bosnia in the next round. BTW, it was Bosnia that beat Italy in the final qualifier, They knocked Italy out of the WC and put Bosnia in it. In other words, Bosnia is a solid team.
 

For those that don’t follow the US team much, in this game we played our B team, whereas Turkey used their best players. The game meant nothing to us, so our starters rested and our coach found out who he could count as subs in future matches. Prior to this game we already knew we won the bracket and will be playing Bosnia in the next round. BTW, it was Bosnia that beat Italy in the final qualifier, They knocked Italy out of the WC and put Bosnia in it. In other words, Bosnia is a solid team.
Thanks for the info. Did not know they played basically their JV team
 





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