Other Games 2025-26

[Mellin]

Even though they'll almost certainly not be very good i'll prefer watching Curacao and Haiti over say if it was Sweden and Poland.

Assuming Trump lets them in.

Yep, won't matter anyway. US will have gone full Gilead by then.

[Villa Lew]

Italy have won the World Cup 4 times, only Brazil have won it more, they're a football mad country and have a population of around 60 million, how they've managed to cock it up 3 times in a row now, is unbelievable.

[Dave]

I imagine the average world ranking of the European teams that have missed out is far higher than anywhere else. There'll be 32 non-European countries at the World Cup, half of them Blose.

Half the Premier League would beat the national champions of most of Europe.

Maybe just have Brentford and Brighton in the Champions League and tell the title winners in Czechia and Belgium to piss off.

[PeterWithesShin]

Way it's going Donnarumma could end up with 150 caps for Italy and go to fewer world cups than Dave Beasant.

[rougegorge]

I would also prefer Italy being in the World Cup.

I know they've messed up again but they would add more quality. Watching Haiti, Curacao and Cape Verde will be a novelty, but I can't imagine they'll be anywhere near as good as Italy.

Curacao just got a drubbing from Australia who haven't got top class players at the moment.

[cdbearsfan]

I imagine the average world ranking of the European teams that have missed out is far higher than anywhere else. There'll be 32 non-European countries at the World Cup, half of them Blose.

Lucky we decide World Cup Qualification based on actual World Cup Qualifying matches then, rather than the nonsensical FIFA rankings which, ludicrously, include friendlies.

Tottenham have a much higher UEFA ranking than Leeds or Forest. Should they be guaranteed a Premier League place regardless of how shit they are in the Premier League?

[eamonn]

The World Cup is once every four years. I prefer to see the strongest teams there or at least proper weighting to the strong continents like Europe and South America, not to see Angola or Iran lose all their games and go home after 10 days.

[eamonn]

I imagine the average world ranking of the European teams that have missed out is far higher than anywhere else. There'll be 32 non-European countries at the World Cup, half of them Blose.

Half the Premier League would beat the national champions of most of Europe.

Maybe just have Brentford and Brighton in the Champions League and tell the title winners in Czechia and Belgium to piss off.

Yes. Come on, you were Italian once.

[PeterWithesShin]

Yeah we need winners like Italy there, who have won 1 game at the World Cup in the last 20 years.

[cdbearsfan]

The World Cup is once every four years. I prefer to see the strongest teams there or at least proper weighting to the strong continents like Europe and South America, not to see Angola or Iran lose all their games and go home after 10 days.

There already is "proper weighting". Nearly twice as many European teams qualify as any other continent, and at least 60% of South Americans qualify. The "weighting" is why Europe has sixteen teams at the World Cup and Oceania has one. Italy got twatted home and away by Norway and have just failed to beat Bosnia after a less than convincing win against a bunch of Championship/League One jobbers from Northern Ireland.

Utterly weird to think that they deserve, in any way, to qualify, just because they're a big name.

Luckily you don't have to worry about Angola, they didn't qualify because they were shit in qualifying. Like Italy.

[Dave]

Yeah we need winners like Italy there, who have won 1 game at the World Cup in the last 20 years.

The one win amusingly enough, coming against England.

Failures against Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand, Uruguay and Costa Rica across the two tournaments they did manage to get to.

Really earned their place.

[PeterWithesShin]

My 'fun' fact of Italy at World Cups. No nation has beaten Italy more often in World Cups than Switzerland. Admit it, that surprises you.

[charlatan]

There already is "proper weighting". Nearly twice as many European teams qualify as any other continent, and at least 60% of South Americans qualify. The "weighting" is why Europe has sixteen teams at the World Cup and Oceania has one.

Maybe the betting markets have it wrong but they think some of the marginal European qualifiers (Sweden and Turkey) are close to 1% shots to win. Whereas the marginal qualifiers from most other confederations are 1000-1 shots.

[cdbearsfan]

Disgraceful that Scotland aren't guaranteed a place after our Kirrin Cup glory in 2006, tbh.

[PeterWithesShin]

Villa won the European in '82, how can Bodo/Glimt be allowed in the CL more often than us!