oldtype

Dubai is basically Las Vegas with no gambling and difficult to access booze. Abu Dhabi has a much more “lived in” feel to it and at least feel like a real city. Some good good too if you know where to look.

47 qualify and then six teams play for the final spot. It’s going to be fun.

Shearer celebrating a South Korea goal. This content was custom built for me.

It is oddly liberating to be paired against the one team I can’t even vaguely envision us beating. If we had England or something I’d be like “eh… they’re better but maybe…” the hope would be agonizing.

Yes, clearly we are headed towards a USA v. England finals.

Still buzzing. Really don't know what I'm supposed to do with all this energy, just sitting in my office watching Youtube videos and smiling like an idiot.

Used to think players going to the Middle East or MLS in their twenties was shit, but now that I'm older, I'll never fault a footballer for securing his and his family's future. Especially the ones that aren't at the absolute top of the pile and won't have much income after their playing career is over.

I think I actually prefer this. Attenuated risk of the entirety of Northeast Asia going up in flames aside, if we're going out at some point anyway I'd much rather have it be after a good showing against Brazil. Annoying how we always get eliminated by shit teams.

Would have avoided Brazil if the Swiss took that chance like they should have.

Not anymore

Yeah give the man some slack he's not going to have to pay for a drink in Cameroon for the rest of his life.

Bruno getting all of his misses out of the way before he scores a hat-trick against us

Referee looked extremely apologetic

Christ, if Switzerland scores again we play them instead.

Getting yourself sent off for that

Holy fuck

I am annoyed by this Pedro guy. Same hairstyle as Bruno, just uglier.

Brazil don't seem to like hitting diagonal long balls. This gives me a little bit of hope.

Of course.

This six-team qualification play-in tournament they're planning for 2026 looks absolutely mint though.

I did just look at the actual numbers and noticed that Asia is getting 3.5 more slots and that.. Well, that's going to be an adventure

You also have to take into account that if you want to develop international football in North America/Asia/Africa etc., you need to give more teams a foot in the door. Asian teams in particular just straight up don't have any important tournaments to prepare for if they don't make the World Cup because most people honestly don't care about the Asian Cup. Makes it hard for the national team to build support.

12 best teams by FIFA Ranking not to make it this year are: Italy, Colombia, Peru, Sweden, Ukraine, Chile, Tunisia, Nigeria, Russia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary. None of those would be particularly out of place. Got a whole bunch of decent-ish teams after that too. Europe, South America, and Africa definitely could all use multiple additional slots. Oman would never make it man Would have been UAE if you had an extra slot for Asia this year. They are pretty shit, but it's fine.

I'm just reading through the list and this is ridiculous The worst team they've lost to at the World Cup is... maybe Norway 1998? They may be bottlers in the later rounds, but they sure get the job done against minnows.

So Brazil have not lost at the World Cup to a team outside of Europe or South America since... (scrolls through Wikipedia) ...ever.