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SIMULATIONS - 2026 FIFA World Cup

1770715213589.pngWhat looks like two semi-finals on either end of the spectrum:
Brazil 0 - 3 England
Ghana 1 -1 Australia (2 - 2 AET, Ghana advances 9-8 on Penalties)

So the dream to win the World Cup is over for the Socceroos - however a Third Place Playoff against Brazil awaits the Socceroos in Miami.

Harry Kane added a goal to his tally in their 3-0 win over Brazil, bringing his tournament tally to 9. However, both of Australia's goals in their loss came from Mitch Duke, which brings his tally now to 7. Both have the opportunity to add more goals in the World Cup Final and Third Place Playoff respectively.
 
Third place playoff coming up shortly for Australia.
"Look, the boys have come so far, it would be a shame not celebrate who got us here." Tony Popovic has said pre-match.
"But we still have a job to do, and a medal to earn. And maybe to upgrade Mitch's boot from Silver to Golden."
5459f8af-2307-4435-8cb5-eb295351e4ef.jpeg

 
Australia were dominated in the first half, but Brazil had nothing to show for it except a penalty, and an own goal. After going into the break 1-1, the Socceroos wiped the floor in a late flurry of goals against the Brazilians - with a goal each to Craig Goodwin, Riley McGree and Brandon Borrello to win 4-1 and take home the Bronze Medal!



England have won the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a 2-0 victory over Ghana, with Harry Kane netting again to bring his tournament tally to 10.

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Golden Boot top 3:
Harry Kane - England - 10
Mitchell Duke - Australia - 7
Giuliano Simeone - Argentina - 4

Australian Goalscorers:
Mitchell Duke - 7
Craig Goodwin - 3
Connor Metcalfe - 1
Martin Boyle - 1
Patrick Yazbek - 1
Riley McGree - 1
Brandon Borrello - 1
 
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Thanks to anyone who followed this - I'll be aiming to do this again in March, following the International Break, using as close to the squads as the March International break as possible, and the results of the actual final Playoffs to qualify (noting that Suriname and New Caledonia are not in game)
 
If anyone remembers Jonah Lomu rugby on PS1 it had these world cup challenges. The beat NZ as Japan was immensely hard.

You need some here.

-Craig Goodwin has given Australia a shock lead against France. Can you play 85 minutes to give Australia an unlikely result?

-Australia has conceded 2 early goals against Chile. Is a fightback possible?

-*chest tightening* Iran have come back from 2 goals down to be level and will advance on away goals. The clock is ticking but can you get Australia to France 98?

-Australia are a man up in a heated match against Italy. Can you hold for extra time and capitalise with the remaining subs to win without penalties?
 
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JS96 said:
If anyone remembers Jonah Lomu rugby on PS1 it had these world cup challenges. The beat NZ as Japan was immensely hard.

You need some here.

-Craig Goodwin has given Australia a shock lead against France. Can you play 85 minutes to give Australia an unlikely result?

-Australia has conceded 2 early goals against Chile. Is a fightback possible?

-*chest tightening* Iran have come back from 2 goals down to be level and will advance on away goals. The clock is ticking but can you get Australia to France 98?

-Australia are a man up in a heated match against Italy. Can you hold for extra time and capitalise with the remaining subs to win without penalties?
Click to expand...
2006, 2010 and 2014 World Cup games used to have these too - miss these a lot :(
 
OK - shit just got real. I have finally gotten working a mod for PC version of EA FC26 that:
  • Adds all national teams to the game (kits and players) - which means in Australia's case, can select from any Australian they added via this mod, as well as already within the game (such as the A-League, but especially Circati)
  • Adds FULL World Cup mode to the Tournaments mode (not career) that begins from qualification
  • Adds World Cup Final and all Continental Finals (Euro, Asian Cup, OFC Nations Cup, etc) to the Kick Off mode
I think I'm about to have some fun if I can get another full sim working from the Group Stage with this
 
NicCarBel said:
OK - shit just got real. I have finally gotten working a mod for PC version of EA FC26 that:
  • Adds all national teams to the game (kits and players) - which means in Australia's case, can select from any Australian they added via this mod, as well as already within the game (such as the A-League, but especially Circati)
  • Adds FULL World Cup mode to the Tournaments mode (not career) that begins from qualification
  • Adds World Cup Final and all Continental Finals (Euro, Asian Cup, OFC Nations Cup, etc) to the Kick Off mode
I think I'm about to have some fun if I can get another full sim working from the Group Stage with this
Click to expand...
And wow - the paid version of his mod ($10 a month, but you can theoretically just pay it once, download it, and then cancel the Patreon) ADDS ALL CONTINENTAL CUPS IN FULL, as well as the World Cup Finals tournament on its own
 
ok upside to this mod - it has everything. All 6 Continental Cups. All Qualification paths. World Cup Finals from the Group Stage.Downside - despite being able to ingame update the squads, you cannot actually use players that this guy hasn't included in the squad.

So, this is the Australia squad:
  • Goalkeepers
    • 1 - Mat Ryan
    • 12 - Paul Izzo
    • 22 - Lawrence Thomas
  • Defenders
    • 3 - Cameron Burgess
    • 2 - Harry Souttar
    • 14 - Alex Grant
    • 5 - Milos Degenek
    • 6 - Kye Rowles
    • 18 - Jordy Bos
    • 28 - Nathaniel Atkinson
    • 29 - Fran Karacic
    • 4 - Aziz Behich
  • Midfielders
    • 27 - Jackson Irvine
    • 7 - Massimo Luongo
    • 11 - Craig Goodwin
    • 24 - Riley McGree
    • 16 - Cameron Devlin
    • 15 - Joshua Nisbet
    • 8 - Mat Leckie
    • 23 - Aiden O'Neill
    • 19 - Anthony Caceres
    • 17 - Marco Tilio
    • 66 - Nestory Irankunda
  • Forwards
    • 10 - Martin Boyle
    • 9 - Brandon Borrello
    • 13 - Adam Taggart
Might do a sim with it in the same style as I did before

EDIT:
Ok, I didn't do a Sim - but I am doing a playthrough with Australia (on Professional AI) with this one.

Paraguay 7
Australia 6
Turkey 3
USA 1

Australia results:

USA 0-3 Australia
Paraguay 2-0 Australia
Australia 2-1 Turkey

Round of 32:
Australia 5-3 Egypt

Round of 16:
Argentina v Australia
 
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Intercontinental Playoff Simulations (finals only, given no Suriname and New Caledonia in games)

DR Congo v Jamaica


Iraq v Bolivia
 
melbcityguy said:
I love your enthusiasm which FIFA is this again?
Click to expand...
This one is a mod of PES / eFootball 2021 - unfortunately the mod I have of this for the 2026 World Cup for FC 26 doesn't allow changes to the squads, it only lets you use what the bloke who made the mod picked for the squads, which... isn't too up to date.

Will spend the next week or so updating the remaining squads that I'm yet to update to the March squads (listed below)
Algeria
Belgium
Colombia
Ecuador
Egypt
England
Iran
Morocco
Netherlands
Portugal
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Spain
Switzerland
Uruguay
Uzbekistan

And then from there, will do another full world cup run following the conclusion of the Playoffs (using the nations that win the real playoffs - unless of course Suriname and/or New Caledonia do the unthinkable) and will probs record the Socceroos, All Whites, and Azzurri (should they qualify) matches for this thread.

Will do another sim run on this using as close to the World Cup squads in May/June once FA's announce them
 
And the UEFA playoff sims are here:

NicCarBel

Post in thread '2026 UEFA WC Qualification'

And the remaining 3 finals (plus the one from earlier):

Playoff Path A Simulation
Bosnia & Herzegovina v Italy


Playoff Path B Simulation
Ukraine v Poland


Playoff Path C Simulation
Kosovo v Turkey


Playoff Path D Simulation
Republic of Ireland v Denmark


As a reminder, this was using as close to the current squads as possible (some squads have been announced with more than 26, so in those cases I cut players with the least caps) - if there were any players not in game, they were replaced...
 
Ok I have finally done the squads for everyone - I will do next sim run of the 2026 FIFA World Cup once the playoff spots are finalised. However, for the nations competing in the playoffs, I have created their current squad to the best of the game's abilities (and this includes injured players not being part of the squad).

For the other 42 directly qualified nations, I have gone as close as possible to the current window's squad, but have taken liberties where I can see a player is out with a minor injury, or players are clearly being rested for this window, or in the case of Cristiano Ronaldo not taking part as part of a suspension but will be available for the World Cup.

I will be doing full watched and recorded simulations of:
  • All games in Group D (Australia's group)
  • All games in Group G (New Zealand's group)
  • All games in Group B (only if Italy qualify)
  • Any knockout fixtures featuring Australia, New Zealand, or Italy should they progress to the knockout stage.
Main reason I'm doing a whole group, is that I noticed in the last sim, there was phantom matches thrown in for the group that the team I was in control of being simulated, which also meant phantom goals for the golden boot, etc etc, so essentially I'll have to manually keep track of these groups and fixtures to ensure it's all accurate (example, last time Australia actually finished second in the group, but in game because of these phantom fixtures, we got knocked out due to a loss that never happened).
 
ok - will probs get this mostly done over the long weekend - confirming will do viewed simulations of all of Group D and Group G.

As I'll be setting up two simulations to run the sets of groups, will essentially be manually recording results into a spreadsheet to determine the 3rd places, etc - and each of the two groups I'm simulating will be in one of the two simulations of the groups - if that makes sense.

In the end, after a good start to the first matches of the Euro playoffs, only 2 of the final 6 playoffs right (Turkey and Iraq).

But, this simulation will be using the actual nations that won the playoffs (Turkey, Iraq, DR Congo, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Sweden)
 
Alrighty - time for me to start the sims

Confirming the Socceroos squad in use for this simulation (as they are registered in game):

GOALKEEPERS
Izzo
Beach
Ryan

DEFENDERS
Circati
Souttar
Degenek
Rowles
Behich
Burgess
Bos
Behich
Geria

MIDFIELDERS
O'Neill
Balard
Yazbek
Hrustic
Robertson
Irvine
Metcalfe
McGree

FORWARDS
Mabil
Irankunda
Toure
Juric
Boyle
Duke

Base starting XI ('best XI' according to game, plus a couple tweaks to personal preference):
squad.jpg
 
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ok scratch that - it froze and didn't save ffs

Will set up again and post links to the live YouTube for each match once it's ready - otherwise if it's live/streaming, will also be on Twitch player below



Will post an update on all groups after Matchday 2, and then after the group stage is complete

Because of the two tournaments thingy I have to sim at the same time - will be Group A, B, C, D, E, F, H and I in one batch, and then groups G, J, K and L in the second, and then a third that will follow the correct knockout structure (hence why I have to do two tournaments)

USA v Paraguay
 
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oh wow same result for USA v Paraguay on the re-run

Australia v Turkey next
 
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