World Cup: Group G: New Zealand vs. Egypt, 6/21/2026

[Live in the Now]

Why do they fake injuries like that?

lol he had a black eye

 

[Shocker]

Kiwis instantly going to Salah with "Shirt swap?" lmao

 

[Live in the Now]

The moments we've seen so far with countries getting their first WC wins or draws and happily parading their flag around the field. Whether it's Canada or Egypt or Curacao or Cape Verde. Gotta love that. Makes me feel good about the world, however briefly it may be.

 

[RobHood]

The moments we've seen so far with countries getting their first WC wins or draws and happily parading their flag around the field. Whether it's Canada or Egypt or Curacao or Cape Verde. Gotta love that. Makes me feel good about the world, however briefly it may be.

And they're getting their first goal/point/win by playing good football. Well done to all.

 

[kabidjan18]

The thing is the biggest issues the underdog teams used to face was that you couldn't necessarily count on there being a professional training and nutrition regime in smaller leagues which often weren't true pro leagues. I think that's changed a lot. With all that expertise being widely publicized and easily accessible today and in fact just many random normal people pursuing really rigid fitness regimes, I think that gap has closed a lot. Cape Verde is full of guys who play in like very low tier leagues and they looked fitness-wise entirely on par with both Spain and Uruguay.

Like just because some guy on NZ or Curacao plays in the Dutch 2nd tier or the Irish league you can't assume the guy doesn't have any athleticism and doesn't know how to run for 90 minutes. And once you have that baseline then stuff like skill on the ball at pace etc. can be worked around in a very small sample size of one group match.

And a trend you'll notice. A lot of the younger players still play in the top flight leagues, as sort of bench or role players, while a lot of the older players have migrated to secondary leagues but used to play in top flight leagues. Essentially, they are current and future journeymen.

Helio Varela starting the season in the Belgian Juliper League with Gent (where Iran's Milad Mohammadi also played) but ended up in the Israeli League, albeit still playing in the Europa League against Lyon, Frankfurt, Aston Villa etc. Kevin Lenini started in the Portuguese league, playing some in the top flight and some in the second league, but now plays in the Russian Premier League. So even the older players who play in a flight 2 league had previously played top flight football (and the younger players who are currently playing top flight football will probably end up in a flight 2 league some day).

But they are all professionals. And so the jokes of "these are bus drivers and cafeteria workers", is actually untrue. They're much closer to being Messi than they are to being bus drivers and cafeteria workers. Naturalization, if we're being honest, is also a huge contributing factor.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

My beautiful dream of a group of only draws has crashed to earth. Why Egypt why?

 

[Gil Gunderson]

The last stretch for the group is going to be fascinating.