Still feeling Poland's loss to qualify, ouch.

Years ago, I had planned on visiting with wife and son and doing a massive tour of North America to show them where I grew up. Now I want to stay as far away from the States as possible. Shame.

That said, it's coming home.

France and Spain are the juggernauts. A few SA countries are in the mix. I think Tuchel knows what he's doing. Kane is such a cool lad and great role model despite all the fuckheads in the sport. Cheering for him to do well.

Have a friend from here in Austria going for all of their matches. Look forward to hearing his stories.

Really hope a country no one expects to do well does well.

The temporary seating looked pretty janky from the highway. I too wish it was held elsewhere

so i guess im gonna have to go to hard rock at least once when it comes to miami, cause thats kinda history and i live right here so what am i gonna say later, oh yeah i watched it on tv 20 mins from my house :p

i don't even care what teams it is :p that sounds fake but its real.

Spain and France are the obvious favourites. Portugal have probably the best squad after those two, although they're critically hampered by the presence of a carved wooden idol of Cristiano Ronaldo up front. I expect England to underperform in this one - I don't think we'll cope very well with the heat.

I personally don't think any of the South American teams look that strong this time around. Messi is surely too old to drag Argentina deep into another tournament these days, and Brazil have been so bad they almost didn't qualify. But then, these teams tend to benefit from big travelling support when the tournament is in the Americas and they'll be better adapted to the temperatures. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, say, Uruguay, ended up having a good tournament.

The key detail that it's the first time the World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams, which means it's bloated with clogger nations like Haiti, Cape Verde and Scotland who would never have qualified in the old format. This means there's no real tough group stages this time round, and the big nations are really going to have to be actively terrible to not at least qualify for the knockout stages. So don't expect too many shocks early on, and also don't expect a great deal of drama.

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Based on everyone's feedback, it sounds like the first round of matches are lame.

France vs Senegal
Spain vs Cape Verde (i didn't even this country existed)
Germany vs Curacao
Portugal vs DR Congo

and so forth.

How is the US team looking? Lame as usual?

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I live in one of the host cities, and they're doing a lot to try to hype it up like its the 2010 Winter Olympics again. Organizers are starting to sober to the reality that no one can afford the ridiculous ticket prices for a bunch of scrub games, much less the global travel costs even getting here now.

Still not as bad as the games hosted in the States tho'.

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The top 5 favourites according to the voices in my head:

1. The Netherlands: My dark orange horse. I don't care what anyone but Joachim Klement says. If he says the Oranje have a shot, I might as well get a two-stripe tattoo down my arms and pray that the ghosts of Cruijff past bless the team. If there's a team whose World Cup victory is long overdue, it's Holland.
   
2. South Korea: Am I biased? Yes. Did they avenge us by beating Germany at the following World Cup, which both explains why I'm biased and why everything is possible? Also yes. Do they have Seoul? Also yes. I rest my case, even if I know these lads won't give my old heart any rest.
   
3. Brazil: Hear me out. I know we're probably the weakest team out of the whole lot here because we staggered through qualifying with all the elegance of a fridge being pushed uphill (I'm not that delusional), but there is a strange pattern in Brazilian football history. And that is, when qualifying looks suspiciously cursed, the World Cup sometimes goes weirdly well. It happened in 2002, and 1994 was not exactly a serene Buddhist meditation either (Thanks, Baggio!). So, do I think we'll win? No. Am I asking way too many rhetorical questions in this post? Yes. Does that make us favourites by default? Also yes. Delulu is our only solulu.
   
4. France: It's not just that I believe France have what it takes to reach a third final in a row. That would be nice. It's not even that I want France to have as many World Cup trophies as Argentina. That would be nicer. It's because I want Macron to descend upon MetLife Stadium, greet the winning team, and then squeeze Trump's tiny little hand in another passive-aggressive handshake. That would be nicest.
   
5. Portugal: I admit this one is personal. Italy already have seven World Cup wins (four as Italy, three disguised as Argentina) and I'm a little sour. Since the whole Portuguese nation is basically Ronaldo and a Brazilian in a trench coat, I feel we can sort of enjoy a vicarious happiness for our brethren across the ocean.

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Last edited by Lira on Jun-03-2026 at 23:34

Center holds it! Holds it!! HOLDS IT!!

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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.
Unlikely by far - what if Iran win gold?

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everything will still be okay

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Eat your heart out, Nate Silver! Through the noble scientific method the Romans would've called Codingus Vibeo, I've devised a football model until the numbers stopped screaming, and now I can play with a World Cup prediction spreadsheet based mostly on Elo ratings and simulated tournament paths. Same Elo obsession as ever, but on 'roids.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to simulate strained hamstrings, Adagio for Strings, Neymar's ankle, and this sort of things, but it's fun.

According to my number crunching Delphi Oracle, Spain really are the favourites, with a 19.5% chance of winning the whole thing, reason my heart has eliminated them already. Argentina follow with 14.8%. France lurk at 10.4%, blah, blah, blah, and Brazil (my beloved fridge being pushed uphill) sit at 4.8%. I haven't updated the Elo ratings after our victory over the land of the Tahiti Brown gods, but this is what matters to me:

South Korea have a 75.3% chance of reaching the Round of 32. Then a 37.5% chance of advancing to the next round. Then 14.2%. Then 4.3%. Then 1.3%. And finally, there is a 0.4% chance of Son Heung-min lifting the World Cup.

It is not a large timeline. It is not a sensible timeline. It is probably held together with duct tape, stoppage-time chaos, and a suspicious number of 1–0 wins. But it exists.

We're in the timeline in which Trump became president. So why the hell not? It is not zero.

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