Argentina captain Lionel Messi has retired from international football following this summer’s World Cup.

Messi said the decision “hurts deep in my soul”, but added that he “realises the time has come”.

For me it has to be the 2014 world cup intro mainly because it was my first ever world cup that i watched and also because its simply timeless, even this summer when i listiened to it on youtube it brought back so many wonderful memories for me watching the world cup in summer 2014. Would love to know yours!

Some examples:
Argentina 1986 — Uruguay, England, Belgium, then West Germany in the final.
Brazil 2002 — Belgium, England, Turkey, then Germany in the final.
Spain 2010 — Portugal, Paraguay, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Germany 2014 — Algeria, France, Brazil, then Argentina.
Argentina 2022 — Australia, Netherlands, Croatia, and France, with multiple matches going to penalties/extra time.

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If this goes through is there any chance he can survive this. Even if he is eventually acquitted - which he may not be - I’d imagine that a lawsuit like this from the most important federation against the FIFA president must cost him his job before the trial even starts.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/aug/27/uefa-preparing-to-bring-criminal-claims-against-gianni-infantino-over-world-cup-sale

Just kill the joy of growing up and put the U15s in a meat grinder, make some money off the sausage. This idiot just can’t seem to stop…

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Tried searching around BBC iplayer and itvx but couldn't find them around anymore

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Apologies for another post about an expanded tournament, but withdrawal is a real thing.

If FIFA expands to 64 teams for the next World Cup, we know it’s a mess logistically, limiting host countries. We know it settles the issue of 3rd place teams by again moving to a power of 2. The addition of countries seems more controversial. I’ve seen people say they like expanding the opportunities, but how does that actually happen?

It seems likely the current proportions would continue, meaning 5 more spots for UEFA, 2 for CONCACAF, 1 for CONMEBOL (can’t see an 80% qualification rate plus the playoff), 4 more for CAF, 3 for AFC, and perhaps a second auto qualifier for OFC, though this could easily go to AFC instead.

Here are the teams we’d have added this year:

Italy, Poland, Denmark, Kosovo, and (perhaps) Wales
Jamaica, Suriname
Bolivia
UAE, Iraq, Oman, Indonesia (pending playoff)
Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria (pending playoff)
New Caledonia

Obviously UEFA would improve the play with their additions, which is unsurprising. CAF as well. And yet, can anyone honestly argue that the others would be a positive addition to the field? Or do you weight things even more heavily to UEFA just to avoid an even worse group stage? I don’t see a good solution out of this, but how does you limit the negatives?

Japan has always been eliminated from first tournament Round like from Round of 16 out of 32-teams in 2018 and 2022 and Round of 32 out of 48 teams. If 64-teams participate in 2030 World Cup, is it more likely that Japan will reach Round of 16?

Netherlands and Croatia are out in Round of 32 while Paraguay, Egypt and Canada made it to Round of 16 showing that even if you are a strong team, you have to be lucky to meet easy teams in a tournament.

Even if japan becomes stronger than in 2026, they will be cooked if they meet France, Argentina or 3 host Countries, Morocco, Portugal and Spain in Round of 32.

My guess is that since Japan is strong in Group Stage, the best way is to be in a same group with France, Argentina, Morocco, Portugal and Spain and get less chance to meet strong teams in Round of 32 since losing 1 game in Group Stage is still fine while losing in the tournament means you are out of the World Cup. What do you guys think?

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It's better when 2 teams go through from each group. It's cleaner and more competitive. So it should just be top 2 from each group to get to 24 teams. But eventually you need 16 or 8 teams from that. So you can divide the 24 teams into 8 groups of 3 and the winners of each form the quarter finals.

The only issue is that some groups will have 2 group winners and some will have 1. The way it can be done fairly by rewarding first round performance is winner of A and runner up of B in group 1, runner up of A and winner of B in group 2. And then the teams from group C are allocated into group 1 or 2 based on combined points of the other two teams.

In this World Cup, the top from C (Brazil) goes into Group 2 with Switzerland (winner B) and South Africa (runner up A) because their combined points was 11 while the runner up from Group C (Morocco) joins Mexico (winner A) and Canada (runner up B) whose combined points was 13.

Based on this World Cup, the all the round 2 groups would be

Group 1 - Mexico, Canada, Morocco

Group 2 - Switzerland, South Africa, Brazil

Group 3 - USA, Ivory Coast, Japan

Group 4 - Germany, Australia, Netherlands

Group 5 - Belgium, Cape Verde, France

Group 6 - Spain, Egypt, Norway

Group 7 - Argentina, Portugal, Croatia

Group 8 - Colombia, Austria, England

Overall, it's the same number of matches in this World Cup as these groups would have a total of 24 matches (same as last 32 and last 16 combined).

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