I did hear the commentator in one of the games say draws will be decided by penalty shoot outs in the next World cup - surely that is wrong?
Yes sorry . This was on Wiki (yes I know not the most reliable) In response, FIFA's chief technical officer Marco van Basten has suggested that draws may be prevented during the group stage by the use of penalty shootouts.[21] This would partially—though not entirely—mitigate the increased risk of collusion, but would also introduce the possibility of a team deciding to eliminate a rival by deliberately losing a penalty shootout.[20] Addressing concerns related to collusion, CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani commented in April 2022 that FIFA was still considering 12 groups of 4.[22]
Love the 12 groups of 4. Coincidentally generating more revenue. Why not 50 groups of 4, then everyone can be in the World Cup? The tournament can last for 6 months or so, hosted by whichever country ‘bids’ the most (when I say ‘bids’, I obviously mean ‘shoves huge brown paper envelopes of bearer bonds under the hotel door of FIFA President and gang’). Love football.
I think the format of the next world cup will make the whole experience much worse. Not only will the venues be spread widely across three huge countries, but the increase in countries participating removes the jeopardy from qualification for the more established footballing nations, and groups of three means some teams will play just two game and be eliminated before the tournament has really got going. It might lead to contrived results in the final games when a draw would put both teams through, or lead to a big advantage/disadvantage to playing in the first game of the group. I would have preferred to expand from 8 groups of 4 to 8 groups of 5 with the top two going through. You get a few more teams in, taking account of the spread of the game, and also have teams stick around a bit longer playing four games minimum.
Surely a sop to the Americans who don't like the idea of draws? Why the hell they have to continually tinker with things is beyond me - they do nothing but spoil what has been a perfectly good product. VAR and the offside rules are a case in point for me. From memory, the rule was tinkered with in 1990 in order to make it more conducive to attacking football, and, rather ironically, to make the game flow more freely, yet all the rule change (and VAR) has done is highlight the incompetence of referees and slow down the decision making process. The disallowed Moroccan goal the other day highlighted this - - two and a half minutes to produce this as evidence that the scorer was offside? I'm not sure what the box to the left is, but it seems to me that the angle of the thick line is just misleading. If it's meant to represent the penalty area, shouldn't it be parallel with the line chopping the guy in white's arm off? And if you can't score with your arm, why can your arm be deemed offside? Whatever next - someone with size 14 feet given offside because the last defender only has size 9? Personally I'd welcome a return to the 'clear daylight between the two' rule - or even just scrap the rule altogether. Or do away with the technology, which has only increased the number of mistakes and made things more contentious as far as I can see.
Interesting that a certain 'feedback' is becoming observable during this World Cup, at least as far as Germany is concerned. The TV viewing figures for Germany's opening match against Japan showed that there were only 9.23 million viewers in Germany, compared to the 26 million for the opening game against Mexico in 2018 - even for the game against Spain, which was peak viewing time it was 17 million (compared to the normal 30 million). According to polls done before the World Cup 59% of people here said that they would boycott the event - at least some of them may be doing this.
A bit of excitement in the 3:00pm kickoffs - Tunisia take the lead against France to move into second place on the table -:when the news filters through to the Australians, they immediately go upfield and score against Denmark to regain second spot. Decent goal too - made all the better by leaving Schmeichel groping at fresh air.
Get Involved Tweet using #bbcfootball or Text 81111 (UK standard rates apply) Peter: Mexico's group stage started with goalkeeping heroics saving them from the spot. They end their group stage with goalkeeping heroics (in the other game) condemning them from the spot. Cruel symmetry So sad but true!
Mexico = 10 games, Canada = 10 games and USA = 60 games in 2026, so is that an 80 game world cup? ATM it's 39!!! Might not be up to date info, but that was from the first paragraph of this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_...ent will be jointly,will each host 10 matches.
Very unlucky for Mexico . After all that Argentina top the group and France will be happy to avoid them and playing Poland Another very harsh penalty call but justice was done in a sense with the save. To avoid teams playing for draws but then if they are worried about collusion just keep it at groups of 4?
I think it’s his head that’s offside. He can’t score with his arm, I agree. Also, top footballers very often have smaller feet, so are they favoured?
For me, this is the strangest story to come out of the World Cup series - an Iranian man celebrating his country's elimination from the World Cup is shot dead by Iranian 'security' forces. That's Iran off my bucket list. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12...ebrating-iran-world-cup-elimination/101720672
That's right, which means going forward we're unlikely to see a tournament hosted in one country again (apart from maybe China) because of the number of larger stadia needed (and FIFA's desire for fancy new stadiums and specific requirements that can mean even existing top-level club stadia can't be used), destroying the atmosphere and vibe you get when it's hosted in one country. Look at all the bids for 2030: Uruguay/Argentina/Chile/Paraguay joint bid, Egypt/Greece/Saudi Arabia joint bid, and Spain/Portugal/Ukraine joint bid. Only Morocco is bidding solo, and apparently they're considering adding Tunisia and Algeria to their bid. Basically, world cups won't be special anymore.
I I believe they call it the T shirt line, something to do with what you can score with (shoulder, torso etc). Either way I would prefer them to go back to clear air between.
Lukaku was brought on to win Belgium the game but he missed great chances. And he knows it. Would have got good odds on Morocco being top!