The host nations keep on rolling. Today I learned that En-Nesyri didn’t make the WC roster.
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Fair.
Not intended as a shot, but you’re both correct in observing that the US got an easy draw, but let’s not pretend like Canada didn’t get an easy group.
All three hosts got the triple leg up on the competition: automatic berth, getting to play at home, and getting automatically put into Pot 1 for the draw. I’m not going to complain, but it has been noticeable that these three Groups have been not only easier than 2022 groups but also than the rest of the 2026 groups (ie even within the larger, watered down field, Groups A, B, and D were all among the weakest)
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So… Get this. New York Times says to itself “Americans need to understand offsides to understand why the goal got called off and then back on.”
And then this is the angle they choose to “clearly” demonstrate it with a fancy “3D” model:
SMH!
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Cote d’Ivoire looking reasonably strong against Germany so far… Still early in the match. But still 75 minutes to play.
Yeah Ivory Coast has been playing well. Even right after the half they came out attacking. Though it seems the momentum has shifted and Germany is taking control.
It feels as if Germany robbed the 3 points. However, in this stage, details matter a lot. Ivory coast could’ve buried the game had Adingra not messed up that pass from Pepe, but oh well. They will still go through if they beat Curacao (most likely).
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Oh man 
to lose to a Sevilla player has to ease the pain just a little? Moving on nonetheless!
What helps is knowing his market value grows from this. 
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Two defensive mistakes from Scotland have all but ended their world cup. We won our qualifying group and have been asleep at the main event. Classic Scotland. At least the fans are having fun!
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They’ve brought the party, that’s for sure.
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When you say “we”, is that because you’re Scottish? Found out recently my paternal line goes back to Scotland for hundreds and plausibly thousands of years, so I’ve got a renewed interest in Scotland these days.
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Yeah I am, I live in Glasgow.
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It’s a shame that Scotland didn’t perform well in this World Cup. They aced their qualifiers… tough luck.
But then you have other cases like Kosovo who does a historical qualifying campaign, beating Sweden home and away, drawing to Switzerland at home, beating Slovenia away and then beating Slovakia 3-4 away in the playoff semis only to get knocked out by a half-offside goal from Turkey, who didn’t deserve to be in the world cup imo as they weren’t the better team against Romania either.
Then you have Sweden who were basically shit in the qualifiers but somehow won the playoffs that were granted to them because of the nations league 2 years prior to the qualifiers.
But it’s football… and that’s why we love it. It’s quite unpredictable and you never know when the good things happen.
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One golden chance away from the World Cup. I’m still mad about it to this day.
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Then you have Iraq… who with all due respect probably didn’t deserve to be on the big stage.
Senegal was clearly playing for the goal advantage here and thrashed them like cockroaches.
Scotland is out as a result… a pity.
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Cabo Verde moves on! Darlings of the tournament get to face the reigning champions on July 3rd.
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Didn’t know we had anyone in the UK beyond England in the Forum. Always surprised how expansive this Forum is… Literally just missing a couple Anglophone Africans and we’ll have all the continents covered. Well, South America is also absent again ever since I returned to the Motherland 
from my years in S America.
@ChrisLail anything interesting in the geo-logs lately that doesn’t look like bot traffic?
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Yeah, still sad for Kosovo, especially since Turkey didn’t really shine.
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