WC Qatar 2022

[teammelli91]

^ Can you imagine if they showed the match but put a black blob to cover the poor referee. Maybe even carve out a chaador for her in the edit lol. When the match is broadcasted everyone in Iran will think there's a dark shadow/ghost running around with the players on the field

[Keshwardoost]

https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/spor...-ronaldo.phtml
Qatar World Cup marks last dance for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo
As the football world prepares to head to Qatar in six months' time, this World Cup is set to bookend the era in which Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been the sport's two pre-eminent players.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
LIONEL MESSI AND CRISTIANO RONALDO. | CEDOC/PERFIL
As the football world prepares to head to Qatar in six months' time, this World Cup is set to bookend the era in which Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been the sport's two pre-eminent players.

At the time, it felt like the 2018 tournament in Russia marked a turning point as a teenage Kylian Mbappé became a global superstar by helping France become world champions.

Mbappé consoling Messi after starring as France beat Argentina in the last 16 was an iconic image of that World Cup.

Fast forward to the present and Mbappé and Messi are team-mates at Paris Saint-Germain.

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Still just 23, the future certainly belongs to Mbappé, who has eclipsed the Argentine at his club this season and has PSG, Real Madrid and football fans the world over on tenterhooks awaiting an announcement on where he will play next season.

Meanwhile, even if they are now on the wane, Messi and Ronaldo will go to Qatar hoping to seize surely their last chance to lift a World Cup, the one glaring omission from the CV of each.

These are the players who have between them won 12 of the last 13 editions of the Ballon d'Or – Messi won his seventh last year.

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Both have won a continental title with their national team, but neither has quite lit up a World Cup in the way they would have hoped.

This will be Messi's fifth World Cup. He was 18 when he scored on his tournament debut in 2006. He inspired Argentina to the 2014 final, which they lost to Germany.

Yet, incredibly, he has never scored in a World Cup knockout match. All of his six goals have come in the group stage.

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He will be 35 by the time Argentina play Saudi Arabia in their opening game on November 22.

"I am going to have to reassess a lot of things after the World Cup, whether it goes well for us or not," Messi admitted in March.

"I hope it goes well, but a lot of things are definitely going to change."



'I will decide'

Ronaldo has also played at four World Cups and last year broke the international scoring record held by Iran's Ali Daei, but he has never managed a goal in the knockout rounds either.

The Portugal captain will be nearly 38 at the end of this year, yet he remains in impressive physical shape and still scored 24 goals for Manchester United this season.

"I will be the one to decide, nobody else," he insisted in March when asked if this could be his last World Cup.

Improved diets and advances in sports science mean more players now are extending their careers at the very top well into their 30s.

Karim Benzema, who turns 35 the day after the final at the Lusail Iconic Stadium, is playing the best football of his career for Real Madrid, the top scorer in La Liga now perhaps the favourite to succeed Messi as Ballon d'Or winner.

So far, Benzema has played at just one World Cup in 2014 before being exiled from the national team for five years over his involvement in a sex-tape blackmail affair.

"There is a World Cup coming and I have to try to do something great. We will see after that if I go down in history," Benzema told L'Équipe recently.



The new wave

The best player at the last World Cup, Luka Modric has continued to mesmerise in flashes this season alongside Benzema for Real Madrid.

The 2018 Ballon d'Or winner will, though, be 37 come Qatar.

A repeat of his heroic physical efforts four years ago – when he dragged Croatia through extra time in three knockout ties en route to the final – is highly unlikely.

Robert Lewandowski may be the greatest pure goal-getter in European football in recent years, but he has only played three World Cup games for Poland and never scored.

Soon to turn 34, this is again his last chance at the tournament, and the same can be said of Uruguayan veterans Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani.

Even Neymar, still comparatively young at 30, has said he might not feature at a World Cup again, such is the strain on his body and mind.

"I will play it like it is the last because I don't know if I will still have the mental strength to put up with even more football," the Brazilian said last year.

Yet Qatar may see one of the game's emerging young stars really make their mark, like Mbappé four years ago.

Norway's failure to qualify means no Erling Haaland, but Spain's Pedri, Dusan Vlahovic of Serbia and Vinicius Junior of Brazil are among the new generation of superstars. If only they can outshine the old boys.

[Keshwardoost]

lmao would be great to set a friendly with brazil so aussies get more pissed off

https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/spor...cellation.phtm

Australian state 'pissed off' over Argentina-Brazil cancellation
Sports minister of Australia's state of Victoria reacts with anger after Argentina pulls out of a highly anticipated friendly against rivals Brazil in Melbourne.

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Images from the Copa América final between Argentina and Brazil at the Maracanã on Saturday, July 10, 2021.
IMAGES FROM THE COPA AMÉRICA FINAL BETWEEN ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL AT THE MARACANÃ ON SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2021. | AFP
The sports minister of Australia's state of Victoria reacted with anger on Thursday after Argentina pulled out of a highly anticipated June 11 friendly against rivals Brazil in Melbourne.

The event's promoter said it had been informed that the Albiceleste were not prepared to travel to Australia for the match "contrary to their prior agreement and commitment to do so."

Ticket holders for the clash at Melbourne Cricket Ground, which would have come just five months before the World Cup, will be eligible for refunds, the promoter said.

"We are pretty disappointed and I think it's fair to say pretty pissed off," Victoria's sports minister Martin Pakula said.

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"I think they owe Australian football fans an explanation because they have not provided an acceptable explanation to the promoter," he added. "It's a game that would have been extremely popular here in Melbourne."

Melbourne is the capital of Victoria state.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil team coordinator Juninho Paulista said the cancellation of the friendly "greatly affects our preparation" for the World Cup.

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Brazil want to find a replacement game during the June window, the penultimate one authorised by FIFA before the World Cup starts on November 21.

[Keshwardoost]

Great analyse from Misaghi, Enayati and Borhani
Maybe something for TM to copy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTs81qA3lZQ

[BacheLot]

[Arman2]

If FIFA are trolls they'll put the women as referees in ours games .
Absolutely ****housery I'd love to see as it may cause strokes among dallals

Omg, I can already sense the embarrassment we Iranians will have to face, if this happens. No handshake from our players, no broadcast in Iran, and a bunch of media outlets that will jump on it. The whole world will be laughing at us again, and call us backward, cavemen and islamists.

[O-ZoNe]

Italian officials believe they have a concrete chance of going to WC due to Ecuadors use of an alleged Colombian player.

https://sportsdias.com/italy-could-p...candal-emerge/

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[Nokhodi]

Italian officials believe they have a concrete chance of going to WC due to Ecuadors use of an alleged Colombian player.

https://sportsdias.com/italy-could-p...candal-emerge/

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Italian media is stupid.
Should Ecuador be banned, it is clearly Chile that will be the replacement.
Italian media is up there with Iranian and Turkish media as being incredibly dumb. I should add the CBC reporters also reporting on the Iran game to that group.

[O-ZoNe]

Italian media is stupid.
Should Ecuador be banned, it is clearly Chile that will be the replacement.
Italian media is up there with Iranian and Turkish media as being incredibly dumb. I should add the CBC reporters also reporting on the Iran game to that group.

Don't the rules stipulate highest Fifa ranked team enters? That is the logic Italy is using according to Fifa statutes.

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[Nokhodi]

Don't the rules stipulate highest Fifa ranked team enters? That is the logic Italy is using according to Fifa statutes.

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No sir. It's first within the confederation that has the ineligible team.

[O-ZoNe]

No sir. It's first within the confederation that has the ineligible team.

Aha! Then the Italians are really out to lunch! Too much vino perhaps!

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[Keshwardoost]

they should just not give it to either chile or italy, two nasty koonsookhte countries when it comes to being bad loosers.
just give it to egypt instead or another country from their continent.. african playoffs were so unfair with the final matchups

[Damavand]

Italian media is stupid.
Should Ecuador be banned, it is clearly Chile that will be the replacement.
Italian media is up there with Iranian and Turkish media as being incredibly dumb. I should add the CBC reporters also reporting on the Iran game to that group.

Actually it will be Colombia. They finished ahead of Chile.

[Nokhodi]

Actually it will be Colombia. They finished ahead of Chile.

If FIFA agrees, only the results of the games which the ineligible player was used would be overturned. In such a situation - Chile and Ecuador would end up switching spots.
There is a reason Chile has been leading the complaints on this.

[teammelli91]

!

Jokes aside, I honestly think McGuire won't be able to outsmart Taremi's penalty winning abilities.

I can totally see McGuire colliding with Taremi inside the box, and VAR will prove it was Harry who did it