World Cup 2026 Thread

Oh, had to share this gem from The Guardian

This thing with Lalas dueling with Zlatan and Henry is NOT making for good television and it’s making American soccer look stupid. Honestly, it would be a better broadcast if Fox would just send Alexi home.

Rebecca Lowe and Thierry Henri have been great, but that’s about it. Zlatan seems like he preps for every show by downing an Ambien. Lalas is Lalas, and it’s not like he’s any different now than he’s been in the past. Maybe the rest of the world just bothered to notice.

Rebecca Lowe is the best. Period. She could host that show with a circus bear and it would be fine, but bringing in three egomaniacs to sit with her was a mistake. But this IS Fox after all, and the only producer they ever had who really knew how to build a soccer desk was Michael Davies and he’s sort of busy running Jeopardy these days.

That said, Zlatan dropping “in the first half I wanted to fall asleep, in the second half I did” yesterday was an all time line.

Zlatan is bored because he can't just talk about Zlatan the whole time. Fire Lalas out of a stuntman cannon... without the net, just into the ocean or something.

StormChaserBH said:

Zlatan is bored because he can't just talk about Zlatan the whole time. Fire Lalas out of a stuntman cannon... without the net, just into the ocean or something.

Click to expand...

Super Dave Lalas … I’d tune in to see him launched into a bay somewhere.

Oh hey Messi scored. Yawn.

(Read that in sarcasm font, of course. That dude is aging in reverse.)

Edited to add: That was posted before he went 1-on-5 and scored between a guy’s legs for the brace.

Lalas has never brought anything to a soccer panel. And Carli Lloyd seems content to follow in his footsteps, just playing the heel. As Lalas is being humiliated on a daily basis by Henry, so was Lloyd at the Women‘s World Cup by Arianne Hingst.

Leoghann said:

Oh hey Messi scored. Yawn.

(Read that in sarcasm font, of course. That dude is aging in reverse.)

Edited to add: That was posted before he went 1-on-5 and scored between a guy’s legs for the brace.

Click to expand...

He is absolutely ridiculous.

France looked bored to tears last night against a pretty solid Iraqi side. If they can keep their focus and don’t get caught up in interpersonal stuff, I like that team to win this thing. Those are pretty big ifs though. It’s a volatile mix, that roster.

Kind of boring nil nil for England and Ghana in which England can consider themselves lucky to not have Pickford sent off and Konsa give up a penalty as that was almost certainly a red card for DOGSO and probably a penalty for Konsa getting nowhere near the ball on that tackle. I'm very glad that England weren't able to score at the end as that would have just been cruel.

Pickford still seems like England's biggest issue for me. I know they really don't have a better option, but that team is begging for a modern goalkeeper and Pickford is absolutely a throwback. Everything about their setup is screaming "sweeper keeper who can play reasonable short to medium passes" and Pickford is a very good shot stopper who is just looking to kick the ball long every time he touches it and isn't the best at coming out of his box to deal with problems.