FIFA World Cup 2026 pre-tournament draw, qualifying and banter thread

oh, and congrats to mr orangeman for the shiny medal he got or whatever

Group I looks tasty

all the groups look weak with this many countries there. there should always be one with two european teams one from south america and one from africa or whatever

Thanks for the OP 72. Honestly just make it thread for the whole of the world cup imo

What the **** is that group for Scotland. Repeat of 1998 and the standard World Cup game of Scotland vs Brazil whenever we qualify. You could see it coming a mile away when they were drawing it as well.

Here for it though. Decent possibility of going through for the first time via one of the 3rd place spots and never know could pull off a massive result vs Brazil/Morocco.. Also the possibility of a new national disgrace via the Haiti game.

and lol at that draw for not suspended CR7

Well, yes, it is a farce, but Bolivia can make that group I, no?

Lol 2am kick off at the weekend. The entire country is going to be the most wrecked its ever been by the time 2am rolls around.

6/14 also Trump’s birthday!

Anybody got that old Group Of Death clip of the English guy shaking with his jaw on his chest?

48 teams AIDS

Only the last place finishers and the 4 worst 3rd place finishers are eliminated in group stages.

You have to be REALLY bad to do so

With 48 teams playing, there will be many thrashings in this World Cup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_...

march 26:

wales v bosnia and herzegovina
italy v northern ireland

ukraine v sweden (in valencia)
poland v albania

slovakia v kosovo
turkey v romania

czech republic v republic of ireland
denmark v north macedonia

new caledonia v jamaica
^ winner plays dr congo in zapopan
bolivia v suriname
^ winner plays iraq in guadalupe

final qualifiers on march 31

anyone going to a game?
anyone in the valencia area for some random action? lol
mood there should be ... interesting

place yer bets

It's Not Coming home

France
Spain

Large Gap

Argentina

Gap

Nico O'Reilly's Squad

50 feet of crap

USA#1

Not sure if I care about this World Cup. Just feels weird man...didn't catch too much of the qatar one either

Are there many visitors expected?

yeah it should be a total gongshow of a spectacle in every possible way. probably the woat. sad!

i voted ban op

Lol the US might contribute more to the record goals in this WC than I thought

In the past we've been used to usually having 1 truly awful team at each World Cup. Be it Qatar, Panama, North Korea or whoever it was each year. With all these extra countries added this time I think there's gonna be several more truly awful teams in there which will definitely bring record goals. Unfortunately probably some meh games as well. Curious about top goalscorer bets in this regard targeting those who have crap teams in their group stage round.

I looked a little bit into this, but to me it seems like:

a.) the markets are adjusted pretty well to players facing minnows
b.) it will be super difficult to guess against which minnows those star will feature

Still pretty sure the goalden boot will be more or less decided in the group stages

I think the key is you don't have to pick the star players. Just go for a long shot attacker who plays a really **** team in the group stage and hope to get lucky and they bang a hat trick.

counterpoint: some guy called haaland scored 16 goals in qualifying

He hasn't scored since. But yea that is a good point

This might be the most laughable list of all time.

1 and 2 are bad enough, but particular shout out to 26, 16, 12, 11, 10, 6.....