Ask those same 10 people their thoughts about Nick Daicos or James Hird and they could go on for hours.

Croatia has a new manager and if Segecic keeps playing at this level he will get selected because they have no wingers outside Marco Pasalic. This might happen as soon as the Nations League in September.

Tuchel is going to cop a lot of criticism but he isn't really the problem. They declined physically, you could see how heavy their legs were on TV and you can see it in the stats. Playing in Mexico City and then backing up with 120 minutes in Miami was always going to be hard to overcome...

FIFA earned $15 billion of revenue from the World Cup and Infantino still wears white sneakers with a suit.

The fact Yamal, N. Williams, Pino etc were either not in form or injured and they still won shows how great their midfield really is. You could argue it's better to have a great midfield than a great attack. Nobody has more attacking talent than France or Argentina and they basically did nothing...

The 21st Century in football really is a story of Spanish excellence. * Created and popularised 4-2-3-1 that really took off in the 2000s. * Most major NT titles (2 World Cups and 3 Euros) * Most Champions Leagues won (11 with Real Madrid & Barcelona). Ditto with the coaches (Benitez, Del...

Congrats @rebelliousfeminist974 🥇

Fabian Ruiz - 50 caps and 0 defeats. He's won 2 Champions Leagues, Euro 2024 (should have won player of the tournament) & now the 2026 World Cup. The most underappreciated player of his generation.

Monoculturalists in shambles this morning.

That's exactly how they went out in 2018 and 2022. I think they were better in Euro 2024 because they had Morata, a fit Nico Williams and Yamal was in better form. Borja Iglesias is the traditional nine replacement for Morata but he's never scored an international goal so you can't really rely...

These Preston Boys need more creativity. Those signs wouldn't have been funny even in high school.

Marconi 0:1 Sydney United. Marconi had a few half chances but didn't look like they would score. Title race is back on.

The pitch at Marconi looks worse than some public fields.

SBS bid $30 million for the WC rights and I would assume they generated a decent ROI on that given the ratings etc. I think they definitely could have done more. I would have liked to see more variety in the guests, way too many former players and not enough coaches. They could have also brought...

I streamed several games on SBS like this. HT and FT interviews in a language other than English and no translation. Not exactly great television. How much would it cost to bring in a crew for a couple of hours to analyse these games?

Craziest stat from this game is that England completed 2 passes from the 66th minute to the 85th minute. They completely abandoned the ball and couldn't get out from defending deep. Their legs looked cooked as well given how slow they were in closing down the Argentine attackers. Way too much...

It's time to bring back Raul Blanco.

Interesting that for years Deschamps got criticised for being too cautious and not playing all his attacking weapons. So at his last tournament he finally plays all his great attackers together and it works until he comes up against a top midfield. Then the limitations of the team surface as...

Lucky SA Police doesn't know about this incident otherwise they might send a helicopter to patrol the skies and charge FK Beograd for it.

It's a shame Nico Williams hasn't been fit this tournament. Baena has been underwhelming and Spain needs a more threatening left winger to stop teams overloading so much on Yamal. De la Fuente has a big decision to make on whether to bring back Pedri after dropping him against Belgium. I would...

Spain only has success in World Cups when the core of the team is Basque and Catalan :)

England vs Argentina is a difficult match for neutrals. Who can you really support when you want both teams to lose?

It's a sad state of affairs. Olympic should be doing better as well given their history. Reality is the league lacks depth even though it's only 11 clubs. A lot of talented juniors don't make the step up and some of the older guys that can play at NPL level don't want to train etc so they drop...

Brindabella and White Eagles don't really belong at this level. Not sure what's going on at Belconnen United. Did they run out of money after the Hawker club closed? They should be doing much better considering all the junior clubs associated with them and with no Gungahlin anymore.

When you make those interstate trips to Queanbeyan you just want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Lucky FIFA have reviewed everything and it turns out the goal was legitimate. No different than somebody marking their own homework.

FIFA balls can detect strands of hair but not metal wire.

You can't compare qualification football to tournament football, they are different beasts. 2002 might be the best example of that. Argentina finishes 1st while Brazil finishes a distant 3rd, then the WC comes and Argentina can't get out of the group while Brazil goes on to win it.

Everybody knows Italy has missed 3 World Cups but the Dutch also didn't qualify for 2 tournaments in the last 10 years. Europe clearly has the most depth. There is not a lot of difference between the 10th ranked team and the 25th ranked team which is why qualifying is not easy.

Europe should really have gotten an extra 4 spots to maintain the same distribution from 2022.

They also made the semi-finals of Euro 1984 and Euro 2000. Benfica and Porto have also won the European Cup/Champions League 4 times. A very good historical record for a country of only 11 million people.

You can see how technically limited the Americans are and how they lack ideas breaking down an organised team. Only 1 shot on target other than the deflected free kick. Limit turnovers from their pressing and they haven't got much to offer.

America belongs to King Charles 👑

I think Danilo and Alex Sandro were finished playing serious football after they left Juventus. Unfamiliar with the Santos guy but he doesn't come across being a difference maker and he plays in the Russian league which has fallen off post 2022. Wesley from Roma being injured was important and...

Brazil losing for the 6th straight World Cup to the first European side they face in the knockouts is hilarious. They brought in Ancelotti to build around Vinicius using a Real Madrid template except with an inferior midfield and perhaps the least talented pair of Brazilian fullbacks in modern...

If you can referee Macarthur vs Perth in Campbelltown you can referee anywhere.

Now it's up to Belgium to complete the trifecta.

I agree but they played a poor match today. The 2nd England goal and the Gordon penalty were ridiculous mistakes.

Mexicans showing once again why they are such underachievers.

2022 Round of 16: UEFA: 8 AFC: 3 CAF: 2 CONMEBOL: 2 CONCACAF: 1 2026 Round of 16: UEFA: 7 CONMEBOL: 4 CONCACAF: 3 CAF: 2 AFC: 0 So Europe went down slightly, both Americas did better (home WC certainly helps), Africa the same while AFC disappoints.

It looks like he spent more time doing fitness drills than training attacking patterns or set pieces.

Just a shocking level of incompetence here. Swapping goalkeepers for a penalty shootout without telling them beforehand? Did Ryan even have time to study the Egyptian penalty takers? If I was Beach I certainly wouldn't want to be around the coaching staff after this. Selecting centre backs...

The issue with placing so much reliance on technology is that you can get both false positives and false negatives. You also have to factor in the ingrained bias and how certain teams always seem to get a disproportionate amount of favourable calls. That's why you end up with situations where...

His substitution was very important because without it they would have lost as they were getting overrun in midfield.

The people wanted extra time and they were denied by a strand of Matanovic's hair. I guess this is why cricket fans hate Snicko so much.

Belgians have had success in America before, let's hope they can pull it off once again.

I can't believe I have to support Belgium in the next round.

I agree player development is non-linear but something doesn't add up here. This kid had his 2nd academy rejection in 2019, goes to Italy to trial where Roma accepts him, then gets Totti as his agent and makes his Serie A debut in 2021. 2 years from an A League academy reject to a big club in...

Why was Volpato rejected from both Sydney FC and WSW? Was it an attitude problem?

I'm surprised by how naive Ecuador played today. They only conceded 5 goals in all of qualifying (18 games) and are getting caught square in Mexico's half after 20 minutes 😲 The atmosphere at Azteca was incredible, easily the best of the whole tournament. It's a shame the final is being played...

That's true. Morocco was one of the best defensive sides in 2022 but under their new manager they play much more attacking. The emergence of Bouaddi and El Ayanoui has been very important to this stylistic switch. They still don't really have a good striker which can be a problem against teams...

I want Mexico to win and then knockout England in the round of 16 in Mexico City.

Haven't lost a game since 2023, defeated France the last 2 times they met and yet still kind of under appreciated. If they didn't have so many players injured or coming back from injury they would probably be the favourites.