As always Turkey lost their opening match at a World Cup. Everytime that happened the team they got beaten by went on to become World Champion.
Congrats to our Aussie Reds.
I love the Barcelona '82 theory but I think it gives the wound a bit too much credit. Romário and Bebeto in '94 weren’t exactly products of a strength-and-conditioning lab. Romário played like defending was beneath him and Bebeto scored goals on vibes alone. And then '02 happens, twenty years after the supposed trauma, and it’s Ronaldo/Rivaldo/Ronaldinho doing absolute wizardry in the World Cup. That’s not flair “emerging by accident,”.
And that whole generation came out of futsal, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Robinho, Kaká all cut their teeth there. So the streets/beaches pipeline was still very much alive well into the 2000s, not 40 years dead.
If anything I’d push the turning point to post-2002, when the academy/selling-young-athletes to european clubs model really took over. Blaming '82 feels like it skips the 20 years where Brazil proved that wound had healed just fine.
As Brazil gets richer or more digitalised, fewer kids are out in the streets playing football all day.
They also lose that individualism that comes from it. Pele used to play in the streets with a sock with newspaper inside it.
I have no idea who came up with this nonsensical rule, but… players aren’t allowed to answer in Spanish during interviews or press conferences. It is incredibly stupid that it has to be English—even in Mexico—and that Spanish wasn’t included among the permitted languages.
I have seen completely confused players on multiple occasions because of this by now.
USA USA USA 
on a serious note though…So basically: FIFA’s four official languages include Spanish, two of the three host nations are Spanish-speaking (well, Mexico is, and there’s a huge Spanish-speaking fanbase across the board), and the actual reason is “we didn’t book enough interpreters.” That’s not a rule, that’s a logistics failure being dressed up as a rule. Imagine telling players in Mexico City they can’t speak Spanish because nobody hired a translator, the absurdity writes itself.
And the kicker, a Mexican reporter literally got stopped from asking Hakimi a question in Spanish. At a tournament hosted partly in Mexico. The lack of interpretation budget shouldn’t be the players’ or journalists’ problem to absorb.
https://x.com/PolymarketSport/status/2065894026847375455
They checked Flo’s feet btw 
The Third World Cup.
I think that’s common to lots of countries. Our village team were advertising for kids to join. Apparently, at one time, they were practically turning kids away.
It is. You´re right
All across the world kids are playing less football every day and it shows.
Crucially, does he have a heir..? 
What a joke
Brilliant from hakimi though
I coach at a high school with 700 kids yet I can barely scratch together 20 for my girls team. We actually played with 10 players at a pre-season tournament last year because we literally couldn’t fill a squad.
Kids just don’t play as much thesedays. I don’t even mean in the more organized fashion like school teams but the school I work at has a fully publically accessible turf field with soccer goals, football posts, hockey goals, lacrosse goals and a running track all there yet any given day you might see someone out for a run on the track or maybe a couple of kids practicing.
Not sure we will ever get back to the days of kids just going out and playing. I remember just walking around the estate until you collected enough lads to have a game. Would never happen now, in most Western countries at least.
Amusingly big Sunderland fan Barry Glendenning did the preview for Haiti as a team on the Guardian podcast and said he looked through the team and only recognized Jean Bellegarde… before later being reminded that Wilson Isidor is a Sunderland player.
His team yesterday looked more like Everton than a Brazilian team.
There’s a fun story going around right now about a German tourist driving across the USA and tweeting about his experiences. He’s made the news, and thousands of Americans are enthusiastically following him on Twitter and cheering on his travel updates. He’s practically being overwhelmed with gifts—I’m really curious to see what happens next for Freddy.
https://x.com/PhetasyDF/status/2065880938223931686
https://x.com/RichieBillie10/status/2066019803232456974
I’m having second thoughts about going to the public viewing today. Sitting in a rainy field drinking Veltins with soggy Currywurst and Pommes doesn’t quite have the same appeal.
I think we’ll watch it in the conservatory again. Better beer as well!