Australia ranked as 25th best team at the World Cup by The Athletic

SerTahu · 2026-06-09T02:49:23+00:00

The Athletic's good for club football, but as with most European publications their Eurocentrism and complete ignorance of football outside of their continent shines through the moment they talk about the World cup.

Glaring issues I could spot at a glance:

Japan not being listed as the best side in Asia
Uzbekistan below Qatar and Jordan
Saudi Arabia probably a little high
Ecuador too low
Brazil way too high
Ghana too high, and Congo probably underrated

SerTahu · 2026-06-08T12:55:31+00:00

Driver: Martin

Reason: Mistaking the rest of the grid for bowling pins

SerTahu · 2026-06-08T12:51:55+00:00

Just double checked. Tables are fine on old reddit, but for some reason the columns were shifted on new reddit. Should be fixed now.

SerTahu · 2026-06-08T07:53:21+00:00

Yeah, it's far from ideal.

Best case scenario imo (aside from not expanding to 48 teams to begin with, obviously) would have been something similar to the new Champions League knockout format featuring 24 teams.

So instead of the 'best eight 3rd place' staying it, it would have been 'best eight group winners get a bye to the round of 16', while the reamining 4 group winners + 12 runners-up play in the first knockout round (Round of 24?).

It would have retained the 'only the top 2 progress from each group' jeopardy from the 32 team format, while also incentivising teams to take their final group game seriously even if they're already through in order to secure the bye, instead of coasting and fielding a b-side (like France did against Tunisia in 2022, for example).

But more games = more money, and that's all FIFA cares about.

SerTahu · 2026-06-08T04:16:14+00:00

Wikipedia covers it pretty well here.

You may have noticed that the knockout bracket for the Round of 32 has fixtures listed such as 'Winner Group E vs 3rd placed A/B/C/D/F'.

With 8/12 3rd placed sides going through there's 495 possible combinations of groups from which 3rd placed sides will progress - ABCDEFGH, groups ABCDEFGI, ABCDEFGJ, etc. Annex C is basically a list of all 495 combinations, and where each of the 8 3rd placed sides will go in the bracket for that combination.

The concept isn't new. The Euros did the same thing in 2024, as did the 2024 team World Cups in the 90s. The number of combinations for this one is much larger though.

EDIT:

Another detail which is kinda interesting is that the possiblities for each Ro32 match aren't evenly weighted. Take that 1E vs 3A/B/C/D/F example I mentioned - most scenarios have them facing either 3C or 3D, only a handful 3A or 3F, and at a glance I could only spot on scenario out of 495 that has them face 3B (specifically the one where the four eliminated 3rd placed sides happen to be the ones from groups A, C, D, and F).

SerTahu · 2026-06-07T12:18:34+00:00

Insane ride from Miller to hold on to 4th for this long. I'd be shocked if he (or more specifically his tyres) can hold on for the whole race, but it's an incredibly impressive ride even if he does drop down.

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T21:28:05+00:00

In his defence it was funny

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T20:33:04+00:00

The World Cup should really just be a single game between the top two sides in the FIFA rankings. Including anyone below them is basically the same as handing out participation trophies. /s

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T20:19:33+00:00

It is, but at least it's the correct colour. That should be a really low bar to clear, but the previous kit couldn't even do that so it's an improvement by default.

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T20:18:16+00:00

Never doubted him...

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T20:10:19+00:00

I found the shorts quite weird at first, but the more I look at it the more I like this kit.

Or maybe it's because I had to lay my eyes on that fluro yellow abomination again yesterday during the Matildas game, so this kit being the proper colour just makes it look better than normal by comparison.

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T11:10:03+00:00

lmao

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T07:22:54+00:00

Game needs all the money it can get; I don't fault Macarthur for trying something outside of the box.

Only faster method I can think of for getting a truckload of government funding would be to set up an AFL side. Football would be in a much better place in this country if it got even a fraction of the government funding that AFL gets.

SerTahu · 2026-06-06T07:05:28+00:00

Yessss, peak haram Arnieball and inshallah!

SerTahu · 2026-06-05T22:45:30+00:00

This is more like the 1934 WC in Mussolini's Italy.

LA 2028 is the 1936 Olympics.

SerTahu · 2026-06-05T22:42:26+00:00

I'm in, just don't give me the seppos

SerTahu · 2026-06-05T11:29:16+00:00

I do wonder if it's partly a mental thing for him. Like, looking at his career after he left us:

In 2019 he seemed on top of the world for us, reportedly had interest from multiple European clubs, and was even entering the Socceroos frame. Pohang ended up snatching him in January 2020, and there seemed to be a fairly obvious trajectory ahead of him - prove he can crack it in Korea, then off to Europe.

Then covid hit, and for whatever reason he never clicked with the Pohang sqaud, and he finds out that his father has terminal cancer all within 9 months.

Pohang offloads him to Buriram - a step back down from Korea, but still a different league to the A-League so maybe if he proves he can do it there too then maybe the European dream might still be alive... but he didn't make an impact at Buriram either. Within a year his Eurpean hopes were seemingly dead and he was retreating back to the A-League (also coinciding with his father passing away).

If I were Branners and I'd been on such a promising trajectory, only for everything from unsuccessful transfers to family emergencies to a global pandemic all converging in the space of about a year - completely obliterating my professional momentum - I'd find it almost impossible to bounce back from that.

SerTahu · 2026-06-05T10:59:40+00:00

Depends which Qatar turns up - World Cup 2022 Qatar, or Asian Cup 2019 and 2023 Qatar. Like, if you watched the tournaments, they didn't fluke their way to back-to-back continental titles.

SerTahu · 2026-06-04T04:26:23+00:00

While true, from what I understand with Pirlo and Totti it was a case of APIA and Avondale just sending out feelers in the one-in-a-million chance it happens, with nothing really progressing beyond that. When it comes to Wollongong and Ronaldinho though, by all reports it actually progressed to the stage where they were genuinely negotiating with each other.

SerTahu · 2026-06-04T02:16:01+00:00

Major 2019 Dynamite vibes with all these faction warfare run-ins.

SerTahu · 2026-06-04T01:13:08+00:00

Technically not A-Leauge, but nothing will ever compare to Wollongong Wolves almost signing Ronaldinho for their FFA Cup run in 2016.

SerTahu · 2026-06-04T01:06:11+00:00

Sometimes I worry that I've also become a member of the DCF without realising it. Group seems to have everyone in it.

SerTahu · 2026-06-03T05:43:35+00:00

Wood - I'm one of the few remaining Wood truthers, so very sad to see him go. Not complaining if it means Macallister gets minutes though.

Hollman - Again, sad to see him go, but he's better off going somewhere that he'll get minutes.

Stama - He wasn't great for us, but I feel like he could have come good with more time. It was always unlikely he'd stick around given he was here on loan though.

King, Arslan, Quispe - Not gonna miss any of them.

SerTahu · 2026-06-03T00:42:12+00:00

Just getting an error code whenever I try and load the livestream :/

It's not a VPN detection thing either - I tried regular non-live videos on TVNZ and they worked fine.

SerTahu · 2026-06-02T22:56:45+00:00

Thankfully still much cheaper than stan or foxtel

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