World Cup preview
WARNING: FOOTBALL CONTENT, SMATTERING OF TRUMP CONTENT
Note: the Goat is not running its usual prediction game for this tournament and will not be doing daily reports. Though there may be occasional reports/updates during the tournament.
When and where?
It starts today (Thursday 11 June) and the first game is at 8pm BST at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, and is between Mexico and South Africa.
It’s the first of 104 matches(!) culminating in the final in New Jersey on 19 July. 39 days of football, football every single day until 8 July (the first of four days off in total throughout the tournament).
Matches can take place at any time on the hour between 5pm and 5am BST (except for 7pm), and a few kick off at half-past the hour during this 12 hour period.
Matches will be played across Mexico, the USA and Canada.
Who?
48 countries, bloated up from 32 last time. There’s an 18 day preliminary round to eliminate the 16 teams who should not have been there in the first place, before the 32 team knock-out stage beginning on Sunday 28 June.
Countries participating include England and Scotland, but not Wales, Northern Ireland or Ireland.
Only eight nations have won the World Cup in its history - Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and England - and they are all here this time, except Italy. Jordan, Curacao, Cape Verde and Uzbekistan are participating for the first time.
Football transcends war. Iran are there, and playing in the USA (though not allowed to spend the night there - they are based across the border in Tijuana). But Russia were banned from taking part. Israel of course were not but failed to qualify. America qualified as hosts.
Aside from Italy, other teams with high FIFA rankings that are missing include Denmark, Poland, Nigeria and Ukraine.
Incredibly perhaps, Ronaldo is there again, age 41, as is Luka Modric (40) and Messi (a comparatively youthful 38).
Why and how?
Money first, with entertainment a long way behind. Ghastly porpoise-faced narcissist Gianni Infantino expanded the competition to leach more money out of all of us and to pander to his FIFA power base of countries in Africa and Asia who are not very good at football but can now qualify for the tournament.
FIFA representatives voted for USA, Mexico and Canada’s joint bid in 2018. Trump had tweeted before the vote: “It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the US bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)?”
Are tickets sold out?
No. There are loads left. Tickets have been priced at rapaciously exorbitant levels, and so it’s hilarious and heartwarming to see FIFA making less money than they wanted and that many touts are going to lose their shirts.
I’ve been monitoring ticket resale sites to see prices for tickets for England’s first game against Croatia in Dallas on June 17th. Plenty are still available and prices are falling at around £100 a day - now around £500 each for two together, down from £1,000 last week. Anyone brave enough could probably fly over to Dallas last minute (currently £800 return), book a double room (currently £170 at Holiday Inn) and probably pick up a ticket for next to nothing from a newly impoverished scalper or over-greedy corrupt FIFA apparatchik.
But of course they risk being denied entry at the airport by ICE agents, especially if they may have written anything on the internet which is mildly critical of the cretinous president, or if they have fantasised about him being rendered to a warehouse and livestreamed Black Mirror style being forced to read out corrections to each of the 50,000 lies he has told in office while being assailed by flesh-eating maggots. As Elon Musk tells us, free speech is a big thing in the USA, but maybe that only applies to white supremacists. I don’t think I will chance it.
To date, most players and staff have eventually made it through immigration, though not Africa’s top referee, from Somalia, a country described by the holder of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize as “filthy, dirty, disgusting” and “a shithole country”. Here’s a nice video of the red-carded ref returning home and giving a dignified speech.
So who’s going to win?
Spain, almost certainly. Put your mortgage on them at 9/21. Though France have a chance. The hot and humid conditions will favour skilful teams with the ability to keep the ball and with speed on the break. But only once out of eight times has a competition in the Americas been won by a team not from South America (Germany in Brazil, 2014). So Argentina and Brazil (and maybe Ecuador) cannot be ruled out.
Have England got a chance?
A puncher’s chance. They have a competent though slightly dull and workmanlike team. Thomas Tuchel is an excellent manager. They are good from set pieces and Harry Kane is having his best ever season, scoring 61 goals this year. If England “go deep” as they say, he even has a chance of lifting the Ballon d’Or, voted by 100 Anglophobe football journalists around the world. He’d be the first Englishman to win it since Michael Owen in 2001 and only the fifth in 70 years2. Kane is a good bet at 13/2 for the golden boot (top goalscorer).
But the weather will be too much for England’s players, mostly exhausted after the brutal Premier League season. Quarter-final heartbreak beckons again.
Who are the dark horses?
I fancy Morocco at 50/1 - they are the AFCON tournament winners (sort of) and reached the semi-finals last time. They are very well-organised. Others mention Japan, who have recently beaten Brazil and England in friendlies, but they lack pedigree, never having won a World Cup knock-out match.
Ecuador and Ivory Coast both have a shout because of miserly defences (Ecuador shipped 5 goals in qualifying in 18 matches and Ivory Coast zero in ten).
Norway were excellent in qualifying and have Haaland upfront and Arsenal’s fragile stage-fright-prone Martin “Noshowdegaard” Odegaard in midfield. Could this finally be his moment? (Of course not).
Who will be the stars of the tournament?
It surely won’t be the old stagers Messi and Ronaldo, ambling into the sunset of their careers. My pick is Yamine Lamal, who announced himself at the 2024 Euros but is still only 18. I love Arda Guler, the Turkey and Real Madrid playmaker, and his Turkey team-mate Kenan Yildiz is highly rated. England’s Nico O’Reilly is a huge talent. The Brazilian Rayan was a shining star at Bournemouth this season, and others can’t get enough of Gilberto Mora, a 17 year old from Mexico. Ivory Coast winger Yan Diomande is likely to be much in diomand after this tournament, and Leipzig and Norway winger Antonio Nusa is sure to make a nusance of himself.
When are England’s games and what is their path to the final?
They start with Croatia at 9pm next Wednesday 17th, then Ghana at 9pm on Tuesday 23 June, and Panama at 10pm on Saturday 27 June. They should win the group and then play a rubbish third placed team on Wednesday 1 July (5pm) in the round of 32. They then have a tricky match, probably against Mexico, in Mexico City at 1am on Monday 6 July. If they squeak through that they probably meet any of Brazil, Morocco, Senegal, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Norway, Japan or France in the quarters, at 10pm BST on Saturday 11 July in Miami. I think that will be a bridge too far for a shattered team in unbearable early evening Florida humidity.
What about Scotland?
One country grateful for the existence of Infantino might be Scotland. He’s made it easier for them to qualify and stuffed the competition with useless central american teams to help them get out of the group, after they have failed to do so in all eleven previous attempts spanning world cups and European championships.
This time they face Haiti and.. um.. Brazil and Morocco. The draw has let them down. Expect a valiant and spirited close defeat to Brazil, a disappointing loss to Morocco and a possible win against Haiti, who will be hampered by having only 5 players on the pitch and the rest in ICE detention facilities. So third place is not out of the question and then possibly a game in the last 32 before their triumphant return home.
Things to watch out for
New rule changes
VAR for corners (yippee, more VAR!).
Injured players waiting 60 seconds (previously 30 seconds) before coming back on.
Subs having to wait a minute if the exiting player takes more than 10 seconds to get off the pitch.
Refs able to start a 5 second countdown for players dawdling over throws and goal kicks. Failure to meet the deadline will result in a throw going the other way or a goal kick turning into a corner for the opponents.
Red cards for players leaving the pitch in protest (Senegal beware) or covering their mouth when confronting an opponent (on suspicion they may be using racist or other insulting language).
And three minute “hydration” (and commercial) breaks during each half.
Bad pitches - No-one really knows what they will be like, though pitches at the world club championship last summer were universally derided - slow and dry, or with the bouncing “almost like if it were jumping around like a rabbit” in the eloquent words of PSG manager Luis Enrique. For this world cup, like George Best, pitches are getting laid shortly before the games start, and FIFA wanted to “grow specialized, reinforced hybrid sod off-site, transporting it in refrigerated trucks and quickly stitching the strips into the stadiums”. What could possibly go wrong? Though it’s encouraging to hear the words “sod off” and FIFA in close proximity.
But here’s an article quoting John Sorochan, “professor of turfgrass science” at the University of Tennessee, expressing confidence in the process. To paraphrase Jay-Z, we got 99 problems but the pitch ain’t one.
FIFA are also apparently worried about Shakira’s scheduled half-time performance on the pitch in the final, though it’s baffling why they should be concerned about a 40-something “small and humble”-breasted prima donna stomping around on the pitch for 10 minutes waving her arms extravagantly, when they’ll have the larger-breasted Ronaldo doing that for at least three matches.
Bad weather - Not only will it be too hot to play football at most venues, there is also the likelihood of severe electrical storms and flooding (England’s warm-up game tonight was delayed for this reason). Play has to be suspended until 30 minutes after the last lightning strike. A new El Niño weather system is forming, with record-breaking temperatures likely across the American continent. Air quality may be badly affected by wildfires. The combination of poor pitches and extreme heat may make some of these matches look like Lawrence of Arabia.
Controversy - We are not yet quite sure how USA are going to mess up this tournament, but with the clowns in charge of the country and FIFA we can be pretty sure that something, somewhere, is going to go very wrong. We will be watching through our fingers in horrified embarrassment.
Alternative World Cup
For those of you wanting to boycott this world cup because of FIFA/Trump, I will update you periodically on the progress of the Bleating Goat Alternative World Cup, which ignores the results of any matches played on American soil, treated as abandoned with the winner being drawn by lots at Goat Towers. Matches in Mexico and Canada will be recognised as normal.
It’s coming home?
As we all know, since its last trip home 60 years ago, football has mainly been hanging out in Brazil and Argentina, with occasional European trips to Germany, France, Spain and Italy. After 60 years of hurt, this may be the year when tears are finally wept from joy and not bitter, missed-penalty heartache. Then again, it may not be and probably won’t be. But we can always dream. Come on England!!!
Don’t take this literally, or even figuratively.
Matthews, Bobby Charlton and Keegan being the others. Denis Law and George Best have also won it.