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[T8SC]

Welcome to the Official NeoGAF FIFA World Cup 2026 OT

With the regular season over, it's now time to look forward to the FIFA World Cup. We already have a "Football OT" here for those who aren't aware, but I understand there will be a lot of people watching the World Cup who aren't regular football fans so, this is to separate the regular football talk (Summer transfers, next season etc) from the big event.

The tournament takes place from the 11th June to 19th July. It will be hosted by 16 cities across the United States, Canada & Mexico. This is the first tournament to include 48 teams, up from the previous 32.

Group stage: 11–27 June
Round of 32: 28 June–3 July
Round of 16: 4–7 July
Quarter-finals: 9–11 July
Semi-finals: 14–15 July
Third-place play-off: 18 July
World Cup Final: 19 July

The groups & teams within are below, along with the knockout progress towards the final.

The top 5 teams which are the most likely to win the tournament are Spain, France, Brazil, England & Portugal, as observed by their current odds at the bookmakers.

Popular players at the tournament include:

Kylian Mbappe - France
Harry Kane - England
Lionel Messi - Argentina
Lamine Yamal - Spain
Erling Haaland - Norway
Cristiano Ronaldo - Portugal
Vinicius Junior - Brazil
Luka Modrić - Croatia

Breakthrough talents to watch out for:

Nico Paz (21) - Argentina
Arda Guler (21) - Turkey
Lamine Yamal (18) - Spain
Nico O'Reilly (21) - England
Yan Diomande (19) - Ivory Coast
Désiré Doué (20) - France
Ibrahim Maza (20) - Algeria
Estêvão (18) - Brazil

Sources:

FIFA
BBC
Sky Sports
CBS Sports
TNT Sports
The Guardian
The Telegraph
Al Jazeera

​

 

[kpopSuperstar]

Finally America gets to host some real sports.

 

[HRK69]

Legit excited

 

[clarky]

Top man. Always enjoy a good moan when drunk about the England team on here.

 

[Ipsi]

LET'S GOOO, EUROPEAN CLUB FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER AND NOW ITS WORLD CUP TIME

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Canada might make it out of the round robin since Italy missed.

 

[German Shocks]

Let's go, Germany!!

 

[clarky]

Let's go, Germany!!

Looks just like the England Manager, weird.

 

[Fake]

Lets see how bad Brazil gets.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Love me a World Cup and will try and watch as many games as possible.

 

[Windle Poons]

Yo please bring Diana Ross back again to kick the ball like USA 94

 

[spons]

Will be hilarious to see the Netherlands struggle their way through this.

 

[KaiserBecks]

Will be hilarious to see the Netherlands struggle their way through this.

I'm hoping for another "Battle of Lusail". The Dutch always enter the tournament full of confidence, thinking they'd actually stand a chance. Once things go downhill, they play incredibly bitchy. It's similar to England, but the English don't play dirty. They just whine in disbelief because they realise they were just hyped up by their own media and fell for it again.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

If I recall, I made the last world cup thread. Keep up with this daily as when the games start, I want to see highlights of every match posted every day.

Hell of a UCL final and much deserved PSG 2 time European champions.

Now we get the main course. I watched some of the friendlies yesterday, especially the Ecuador v Saudi Arabi match. To my surprise, Ecuador won as I expected a better version of them but all the top talent is resting for the big tournament.

Can we all joke about how Neymar got called up and didn't deserve it only to be out probably until at least the Morocco game. That means all friendlies leading up to and including a group stage match.

Excited to see Erling Haaland in his first world cup.

Argentina's journey to repeat and truly send Messi off with a bang. Hopefully the team plays for him like they did last time because even a 38y old Messi is still unmatched in his pitch awareness and finesse.

The USNNT just to see if they can surprise us and get out of the group and maybe into the round of 16.

So many nations to name with key players who have been on the come up like Olise Doué and so many more.

Ronaldo hoping he doesn't trip over himself trying to do things he can't do anymore.

All the great commentary and reactions from the pundits especially El Chiringuito and tío Soria.

Lamine Yamal hopefully make a proper return in good health from that injury about a month ago.

The atmosphere of all those countries and energy representing their squads.

We're in for a hell of a next couple months of sports too. This, UFC 250, tennis, the WNBA. Oh and the NBA D league finals.