for some reason they changed 8 players from the Chile game, nicely done

Horrible penalty call

Ball don't lie Neymar

OFC Group B update: Papua New Guinea upset Tahiti this morning, keeping the group interesting:

Group B:

Tahiti - Solomon Islands 3-0* (awarded due to ineligible player, originally 1-0)
Solomon Islands - Tahiti 1-0
Papua New Guinea - Tahiti 1-3
Tahiti - Papua New Guinea 1-2

Solomon Islands - Papua New Guinea: June 9th
Papua New Guinea - Solomon Islands: June 13th

Team	Played	GD	Points
Tahiti	4	+3 (7-4)	6
Papua New Guinea	2	-1 (3-4)	3
Solomon Islands	2	-2 (1-3)	3

This means both Solomon Islands and P.N.G. can still win the group if they get at least a win + better GD than 5-4. Tahiti will have to watch and hope for either two draws or some type of low scoring wins for each of them. The group winner will advance to play New Zealand.

In CONMEBOL, Brazil is the first team to qualify for Soviet Russia. Bolivia and Venezuela are already eliminated, the rest of the group is within 6 points of each other with four games to go.

Lol @ the number of spots Vs quality of teams in CONMEBOL. Luckily we will have a 200 team WC soon.

Funny how little people understand how football in the last 10 years worked. Who were the (international) teams who won something?? Spain, chile, germany and portugal. What does these teams have all in common? Really strong midfeld players. Funny that spain now has costa and morata (two really good forwards) and they 'failed' to do anything in the last WC and Euros. Same goes for portugal. After putting CR7 up front they had way more playability in the midfield. I know CR7 fan boys will again cry and sent me mad PM but the reality is he only creates 0,8 chances per game and has the 6 lowest participation in build ups in La Liga.

People think lots of fowards will score lots of goals, but thats not how football works.

So Ronaldo and Alexis are not as important to their teams as the "really strong midfield players" in Chile and Portugal, cool...

He clearly just meant to say Ranato Sanches >>> CR7 and Messi.
I can not disagree with this.

Funnily enough, the Bureau of the council today announced its recommendation for the number of slots in a 48-team World Cup in 2026:

· AFC: 8 direct slots
· CAF: 9 direct slots
· CONCACAF: 6 direct slots
· CONMEBOL: 6 direct slots
· OFC: 1 direct slot
· UEFA: 16 direct slots

The above allocation accounts for 46 of the 48 participating teams. The proposal reviewed by the Bureau of the Council includes a play-off tournament involving six teams to decide the last two FIFA World Cup berths:

- One team per confederation with the exception of UEFA + one additional team from the confederation of the host country;

- Two teams to be seeded based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The seeded teams will play for a FIFA World Cup berth against the winners of the first two knockout games involving the four unseeded teams;

-Tournament to be played in the host country(ies) and to be used as a test event for the FIFA World Cup;

Maybe then we can join in the fun

i cant even name 6 countries in concacaf. are they just bringing everyone (except for canada)?

So the new World Cup is New Zealand + 47 teams?

CONMEBOL still gets raped. The 7th ranked CONMEBOL team is ranked 19th in the world for god's sake. So lol that a top 25 team or 2 would be guaranteed to be left out of a 48-team World Cup while we'd be getting teams like Martinique or Burkina Faso with a very real shot of qualifying.

it's more like 18 uefa slots when you consider that the european sides will win the play-off tournament against tahiti and oman roughly every time tbf

CONMEBOL going to have a hard time selling their qualifier rights as well if they have essentially 7 spots (with the playoff spot)

St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Barbuda, Trinidad, Tobago

Except for south America and Europe, it really does get awful in a hurry past the first few teams

America's got the most money and America sucks at football. Not hard to figure why they'd want to give them a 100% chance of qualifying

some decent countries in the africa pot too tbf. algeria should have knocked germany out of the world cup but are still left out

also europe apparently isnt invited to the playoff tournament? wtf?

I think I want NZ to play Argentina or Columbia in the inter continental playoffs this year just for the mooloo (assuming we don't LOL it up against PNG or Tahiti). The nut low result would be playing and losing to Ecuador.

New Zealand will occasionally not qualify from 2026. But not all that often. 8 out of 10 probably.

Also: St Vincent, Grenadines, Turks, Caicos.

Sadly St. Kitts and Nevis is currently sitting 8th in CONCACAF according to FIFA. They very possibly could be in a World Cup in our lifetimes.

It's gonna suck having teams in that World Cup who are just gonna get blasted by everyone. 2013 Confed. Cup with Tahiti all over again.

Unfortunately, NZ have zero chance now that they have to play CONMEBOL. Their only hope is vs. CONCACAF and drawing one of the minnows, but they were unfortunate to get Mexico last time.

The team seems like a far cry from that 2010 squad who took the world by storm, dominating the World Cup and not losing a single match the whole competition.

One grenadine, two grenadines, three grenadines...

That is actually a 46-team World Cup. The last 2 would probably come from CONMEBOL and CAF via the playoff.

CONCACAF JFC they should have 3 spots max eve
n in the extended WC. CONMEBOL should just have 9 spots let's face it. Entire qualifying just to exclude one team. Sounds good.

To save this **** show actually they need to combine Americas into one continent. 12 spots one continent.

or the reigning champions and the host nation

The Dutch are an energetic and inventive people.

I'm sure they will find a way to not qualify for even a 48 team World Cup.