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Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia (France and Australia qualify)


Big River

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16 years ago  when we made the first world cup in decades, there was a hope that it would spark the country to taking the game seriously, but its had constant mismanagement since, with poor youth development (losing one of our best young prospects to Italy the way we have) and nearly all media undermining the sport (one or our biggest sporting shows on weekend just gone didn't even mention the world cup being on).

 

It's no surprise that when we end up on the world stage we look completely out of our depth, and I don't think it's going to change anytime soon 

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1 minute ago, LFEE said:

Mooy constantly refusing to pass to GK. He’s so pedestrian.

 

:lol: You ain't lying. He goes to bust a gut on the wing and Mooy sends it straight in the middle to someone surrounded by three Frenchmen.

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1 minute ago, wiseman said:

16 years ago  when we made the first world cup in decades, there was a hope that it would spark the country to taking the game seriously, but its had constant mismanagement since, with poor youth development (losing one of our best young prospects to Italy the way we have) and nearly all media undermining the sport (one or our biggest sporting shows on weekend just gone didn't even mention the world cup being on).

 

It's no surprise that when we end up on the world stage we look completely out of our depth, and I don't think it's going to change anytime soon 

 

:lol: Sounds familiar.

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Just now, Dandy Man said:

Gallant effort from the Australians according to Danny Murphy, questionable

 

Should hold their heads up high and done their country proud was overselling it a tad. 

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8 minutes ago, Mike said:

There are gonna be some absolute shitfests at the next world cup.

 

Expanding it by a full 50% is honestly a worse decision than giving this one to Qatar, in terms of what it will do to the quality of the competition.

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3 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

 

Expanding it by a full 50% is honestly a worse decision than giving this one to Qatar, in terms of what it will do to the quality of the competition.

 

Surely going in completely the wrong direction too in terms of the carbon footprint? For this one to be generating the highest amount of carbon footprint ever, when everything's within a few miles of each other, I fail to see how it's getting any better by spreading it across an entire continent. 

 

16 groups of three. :lol:

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13 minutes ago, Sima said:

Going to be some absolute shit in it.

 

Like Scotland.

The gulf in quality between the sides in this competition so far has been vast. Can see a fair few more empty seats at the next one with the expansion. 

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2 hours ago, Yorkie said:

 

Surely going in completely the wrong direction too in terms of the carbon footprint? For this one to be generating the highest amount of carbon footprint ever, when everything's within a few miles of each other, I fail to see how it's getting any better by spreading it across an entire continent. 

 

16 groups of three. :lol:

 

Yeah, absolutely. It's like going from one extreme to the other.

 

To be honest, for all the undoubted issues with this World Cup, the fundamentally smaller scale of it is not necessarily one of them IMO. It's obviously too extreme to have what is basically the equivalent of 7 stadiums in greater Newcastle and 1 in Sunderland. The squeeze has made it impossible in terms of accomodation capacity so you've got thousands of fans flying in and back every day from neighbouring gulf states. That is atrocious in terms of environmental impact. But in terms of actual matchday logistics the biggest (and only real) issues appear to have been at Al Khor - the only one not in Doha and the only one not served by the Metro. It's the bottleneck issue of people literally only travelling there for the match at the same time (as there's nowt else there) - and mostly by car. Other than their brittleness in terms of support the horrendous traffic issues would have contributed significantly to the mass exodus for that opening game.

 

The ideal solution is probably something actually in the middle of this tournament and the next one's extremes. 8-10 stadiums spread across a small handful of cities that are pretty close together and connected by good public transport links. Keeps travelling to a minimum for fans and players, provides enough accomodation capacity, but still has the feeling of a tournament with individual host cities/stadiums that have differing identity/history/architecture (this has clearly been lost this time around).

 

The problem is that the tournament will have now expanded to the point where this middle ground is very hard to find as only big countries/continents can actually have the financial and infrastructural means to host. And even if they could feasibly do the smaller scale approach the political pressure would always be to spread the games around all regions of said host(s).

 

 

Edited by ponsaelius

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Unless it’s China I don’t think there’ll be a single WC host unless it comes back down to 32 teams even though there’s probably still a few nations who could just about do it but given USA which definitely could had to expand out I just can’t see it. 

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The thing is with a fit for purpose world governing body there should be a real requirement for any host bids to have genuine credentials in respect to minimising carbon footprint. Rather than greenwashing nonsense like 'recycling' brand spanking newly built stadiums and tokenistic off-site mitigation - a sustainable urban goal should be fundamentally built into any bid. That would mean re-using or redeveloping as many existing stadium sites (and their surrounding areas) as possible. Actually requiring governments to invest in transport infrastructure within cities and to link host cities together. Purpose built accomodation which becomes new residential homes afterwards. Etc etc. The World Cup circus could be a genuine chance to leave a proper legacy after it goes - but rarely is because of FIFA profiteering and the political bombast of hosts.

 

 

Edited by ponsaelius

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You could tailor it too. Places like here or Spain or Germany or wherever that have the stadiums to go without much so you focus on the non football stuff. Places like Morocco who seemingly bid every year (and would be pretty good and different IMO bar the mad heat) could have a healthy mix of everything. Places like Australia/NZ you invest in building football infrastructure and profile. Having flats built for delegates, media and fans which become relatively affordable residential is perfect for a huge amount of cities in the world. Obviously none of this will ever happen. 
 

That weird Saudi bid or not will tell us all the direction of travel for the next decade.

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2 hours ago, Disco said:

Unless it’s China I don’t think there’ll be a single WC host unless it comes back down to 32 teams even though there’s probably still a few nations who could just about do it but given USA which definitely could had to expand out I just can’t see it. 


For what it’s worth, the US could host a 36 team WC literally tomorrow if needed. We do a 32 team NFL league (average attendance 70k) every Sunday. 

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14 minutes ago, cubaricho said:


For what it’s worth, the US could host a 36 team WC literally tomorrow if needed. We do a 32 team NFL league (average attendance 70k) every Sunday. 


I know but I assume it’s bad FIFA politics you had to include elsewhere which makes no sense. We’re doing the same for the Euro bid. Pointless and adds to fan expense hugely which is stadiums/accommodation aside should be the only concern.

 

WC in North America in theory should be good as it’ll desirable for all travelling fans ,albeit mad expensive, as well as having big resident communities who’ll support teams. Few actual football grounds will look and sound absolutely shite though. 

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