2026 fifa world cup

rayusa · 2026-05-06T11:23:49.574384-07:00

sweden's qualification for the world cup was an absolute farce. i honestly can't remember ever seeing such an undeserved achievement in my life. you finish dead last in your qualifying group with 2 points, and let me emphasize this, just because you beat the likes of slovakia, estonia, and azerbaijan in nations league c, you get to play in the playoffs. i mean, you're playing in the playoffs because, per the rules, you got relegated in the previous nations league cycle. then, because you're not seeded in the playoffs, the match you were supposed to play away at ukraine ends up being played on neutral ground in spain. then, by sheer luck of the draw, you beat ukraine on neutral ground, and again by luck of the draw, you end up playing poland at home in the final. you beat them at home too and book your spot in the finals. having all of this line up back-to-back just wasn't fair in any way. first and foremost, this whole nations league nonsense needs to go. why are you rewarding failure? if you absolutely insist on having some kind of incentive, then give that extra spot to teams in leagues a and b so that teams actually fight to get promoted to those leagues. why is a team getting special treatment just because it beat azerbaijan and estonia in league c? the playoff system itself also needs a serious overhaul. just have all the matches played on neutral ground in a single host country, like the european cups did during covid. today, turkey was the only away team to advance, even though on paper the away teams were actually stronger, which goes to show how much home advantage matters. this is what happens when incompetents are running the show. then again, uefa probably figures, "as long as the big teams make it, who cares about the rest." hopefully they'll move past this mindset and we'll get a fairer qualification process.

when everyone kept seeing upset scorelines in the early rounds of the cup, they called it "match-fixing," after the surprise results they said "the big teams can't impose themselves, this is a terrible cup," and now that only the favorites are left in the final 4, they're saying it's a terrible cup. we would've loved a final like colombia-morocco or norway-mexico too, but even if that had happened, you'd still be calling it an awful cup because the big teams got knocked out one by one.

the favorites are the ones left in the semifinals, but they didn't get here with any ease. england went down against congo and clawed the match back in the final 5 minutes. in that match, if congo hadn't lost their concentration in the closing minutes and checked out, they'd have been the ones advancing. and that's exactly the difference between big teams and small teams. teams like england and france don't easily give up matches they're leading, because they don't check out for 90 minutes.

on the other hand, let's look at argentina. they headed into the final 10 minutes down 2-0 against egypt. egypt got complacent in the last 10 minutes and completely checked out, conceding 3 goals in a row and losing 3-2. in that match, if egypt had been a little more careful, argentina would've been knocked out.

yesterday norway went up 1-0 against england and was pushing for a second, but with a selfish mistake in attack they blew a clear goal-scoring chance. then they conceded 2 goals and got knocked out. in the england-mexico match, in a similar situation, kane passed to bellingham to let him score, but when sorloth got selfish, the match turned.

switzerland maybe could've knocked out argentina, but a swiss player threw himself into a pointless challenge and got a red card, practically gift-wrapping the match for argentina.

senegal was up 2-0 against belgium and then conceded 2 goals in the final 5 minutes, plus one more in extra time, getting knocked out 3-2.

japan lost a match they were leading 1-0 against brazil to a ridiculous goal they conceded in the 90+5th minute.

in this cup, the biggest difference between the big teams and the small teams was concentration. 2 of the 4 teams that made the final 4 could've easily been knocked out in earlier rounds, but got this far because of their opponents' concentration problems. big teams win the match when they go ahead, while small teams get complacent in the final minutes and give the match away when they go ahead. that was the biggest difference of all.