"When you look at football in the US, soccer in the US, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, shouldn't it really be called football? We have to come up with another name for the NFL" - Donald J. Drump

Our President won his first participation trophy. He must be very proud.

At first I wondered why there's a draw for the first round, since the remainder are all random anyway. But now it makes sense: the first round draw determines the possible opponents after leaving the group stage.

I don't see an obvious group of death this time; maybe the closest is group L, with picks in the top three of pots 2-4.

New Zealand is all set to continue her unbeaten (since 1982!) run at football world cups by humbling Egypt, Iran and Belgium.

USA gets to play Australia in Seattle. Should be fun!

Y'know things are weird when Blatter sounds good next to Infantino.  Also Iran is going to play at least one game in the US, hopefully ICE Commandos don't nab them all.

9 hours ago, rjshae said:

At first I wondered why there's a draw for the first round, since the remainder are all random anyway. But now it makes sense: the first round draw determines the possible opponents after leaving the group stage.

I don't see an obvious group of death this time; maybe the closest is group L, with picks in the top three of pots 2-4.

Yep, Group F could be tricky.  Germany got an easy draw, but they are choke artists of late so who the hell knows.   Canada could end up with Italy, or more likely Northen Ireland.Ideally would be 64 teams in the Cup. Have a good, wha

Edited December 6, 2025Dec 6 by Malcador

I looked at the teams...

I didn't even knew some of those countries existed.

Congo and Iraq are in

Italy has fallen

Reportedly, tickets for the final are now going for 11,000 USD each. Yeesh. Glad it'll all be televised.

7 hours ago, Malcador said:

Italy has fallen

Biggest shock so far, very disappointing but they also didn't qualify in 2022

South Africa has made it, first time since 2010 which doesn't really count because we hosted it so you automatically qualify

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/worldcup/2026/03/31/world-cup-2026-qualified-teams/89393699007/

The 42 teams who have qualified so far

• Host nations: Canada, Mexico, United States

• Asia: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan, *Iraq

• Africa: Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, *DR Congo

• Concacaf: Curaçao, Haiti, Panama

• Europe: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden, Czechia, Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Oceania: New Zealand

• South America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay

The World Cup is less than 2 weeks away, its time to get excited

Full schedules are now available and South Africa is playing in the first game against Mexico

https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/match-schedule-fixtures-results-teams-stadiums

I raised an eyebrow when I noticed Australia was part of Asia, where as New Zealand was part of Oceania. Aren't they part of the same regional football organisation (like UEFA for European countries)?

Normally I would feel a bit sad, that Denmark isn't in the line up, but this time probably feeling a bit of relief. It saves people having to think about boycotting it or not

Why would people boycott the Danish soccer team?

22 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Why would people boycott the Danish soccer team?

Good question

@Gorth why would Danes boycott there national team in the World Cup? I can guess but I dont want to because it will annoy me if Im right

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Good question

@Gorth why would Danes boycott there national team in the World Cup? I can guess but I dont want to because it will annoy me if Im right

Greenland/US.

Boycotting the FIFA arrangement, not the team 😛

Hopefully Iran wins it all.

9 hours ago, Gorth said:

I raised an eyebrow when I noticed Australia was part of Asia, where as New Zealand was part of Oceania. Aren't they part of the same regional football organisation (like UEFA for European countries)?

Used to be part of the same confederation. Officially, Australia left because Asia provided better competition and more commercial opportunities. Unofficially, Australia thought they should dominate and determine policy, everyone else didn't want that and kept voting Charlie Dempsey as confed head. The most famous consequence of that was South Africa missing out on the World Cup to Germany first time around in one of those perpetual FIFA voting scandals. Which semi ironically is also how Oceania (practically, NZ) got a permanent qualification spot to the World Cup a decade later.

Doesn't make much practical difference, now, as FIFA has relaxed some of their more restrictive rules on cross confederation participation (eg in theory there was a limit on the number of NZers able to play in the Phoenix or previously the Kings despite them being NZ based teams, since they were classed as being non confederation). Don't think Auckland can play in the Asia club champions competition despite winning the Australian competition, but that's about it for limitations now; similarly, two Australian clubs play in the Oceania league.

13 hours ago, Gorth said:

Boycotting the FIFA arrangement, not the team 😛

Sorry Im still not sure what you mean?

Are you talking about issues with FIFA like there support for Trump or how they have made the WC larger and included teams that shouldn't really be playing at this level?

Its not about Greenland like @rjshae mentioned because that was a good suggestion I never thought of but I would be surprised if that would be a reason?

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Sorry Im still not sure what you mean?

Are you talking about issues with FIFA like there support for Trump or how they have made the WC larger and included teams that shouldn't really be playing at this level?

Its not about Greenland like @rjshae mentioned because that was a good suggestion I never thought of but I would be surprised if that would be a reason?

It's about the corruption in FIFA, that needs to adressed. Infantini is worse than Blatter, so question is how do you go about dismantling FIFA, or at least force a change in management. It's a private corporation, so there ethics is never a concern if it poses a risk to the bottomline.

How to force a change in FIFA? The only leverage is money, if you make them irrelevant and hurt their balance sheet, they might be open to suggestions.

edit: Qatar 2022 was for me the proverbial drop, that made me really resent FIFA.

14 minutes ago, Gorth said:

It's about the corruption in FIFA, that needs to adressed. Infantini is worse than Blatter, so question is how do you go about dismantling FIFA, or at least force a change in management. It's a private corporation, so there ethics is never a concern if it poses a risk to the bottomline.

How to force a change in FIFA? The only leverage is money, if you make them irrelevant and hurt their balance sheet, they might be open to suggestions.

I laughed when you explained this reason because it shows how far off we were around our assumptions

We were guessing anti-Trump sentiment, Greenland and I thought it could be because of unhappiness with your new domestic migration policies and how some Danes dont want to support the national team because they don't like the current governments policies

But its about something much more obvious and historical. FIFA is linked to corruption and yet we have " normalized " it because nothing seems to change and everyone wants to watch the WC

In the 2010 WC South Africa paid a bride to get WC because FIFA basically demanded it , Africa deserved to get a WC but a bribe was still paid

But going back to your original point, it demonstrates how sincere and ethical Nordic countries generally are. As I mentioned we were guessing it was about some complicated , nuanced geopolitical\political issue but it was just about a real criticism of FIFA and how you can force real change

Sometimes we dont see what is right in front of us