World Cup: Group I: France vs. Iraq, 6/22/2026

[GKJ]

Dembele makes it 3-0

They spent a while trying to get it to him.

 

[gary69]

Olise again with an assist. Dembele now only has 50 odd goals to go to reach Mbappe's number for France.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Iraq is a bad team and this is yet another example of why it was stupid to go to 48 teams.

I am looking forward to the knockout rounds, especially when it gets to the round of 16 (because the round of 32 is going to have some non-competitive games with teams that have no business being in a knockout game).

AFC has too many teams which are total rubbish. I know they want to avoid a UEFA heavy WC but it just makes sense for fan interest to add more UEFA slots.

It will never happen though since there's too much money to be made from the middle east.

 

[luiginb]

The audacity of Iraq to try and play from the back against Norway and France.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

The audacity of Iraq to try and play from the back against Norway and France.

 

[GKJ]

Of course not, they don’t want the game to take longer than it should.

 

[jcs0218]

AFC has too many teams which are total rubbish. I know they want to avoid a UEFA heavy WC but it just makes sense for fan interest to add more UEFA slots.

It will never happen though since there's too much money to be made from the middle east.

I agree that more UEFA teams and less AFC teams should be in it.

For example, people laugh at Italy for not qualifying for the World Cup yet again, but I doubt they would be getting dominated like some of these AFC teams.

France would beat Iraq even if you forced France to play the entire game without a goalkeeper.

 

[luiginb]

who´s that? he looks like he overdid it a bit on his coke habit

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Zidane, Aimar, whats with all this stolen soccer valor in Iraq?

 

[gary69]

Of course not, they don’t want the game to take longer than it should.

Advertisers run out of ads during HT break, or maybe they didn't want to pay the extortinate fees FIFA was demanding for the extra 100 ad slots.

 

[Brain Crush]

They spent a while trying to get it to him.

Knew they would. He's been taking heat for his NT performances so I put him to score on a parlay because I figured his teammates would want to quiet the noise for him. Thought there was a decent chance they'd try to get him on the board, especially in a group game against a shitty team.

 

[NyQuil]

That was horrible. I might switch to the other match after that.

I did.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Mdroppe

 

[Edmonton East]

No VAR check? In what world is that not a PK? Pathetic lol. He shifted into his run and extended arm lmao. Clown officials

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

I agree that more UEFA teams and less AFC teams should be in it.

For example, people laugh at Italy for not qualifying for the World Cup yet again, but I doubt they would be getting dominated like some of these AFC teams.

France would beat Iraq even if you forced France to play the entire game without a goalkeeper.

Yeah. Not an Italy fan but they had one of the highest point totals in UEFA and were denied direct entry.

Denmark is a good team that unfortunately didn't make it and Poland had a legendary striker that is sitting the tournament out.

 

[Live in the Now]

I agree that more UEFA teams and less AFC teams should be in it.

For example, people laugh at Italy for not qualifying for the World Cup yet again, but I doubt they would be getting dominated like some of these AFC teams.

France would beat Iraq even if you forced France to play the entire game without a goalkeeper.

I’m not trying to come to anyone’s defense but the best team in the world would beat any team out of the top 15 like they were dogs. That’s where N.A. fan culture and football culture come into odds with each other imo. It’s kind of incomprehensible to some people that this game would happen, but the game isn’t always about results. Ultra capitalism takes us away from the most important thing the game is about. It is a reprieve from our shitty lives and people can dare to dream of something.

When you say Italy should be there you’re only hand picking the country you think belonged there, but other countries like Ireland that are unfortunately no good also failed in similar fashion. Ireland would play Iraq off the pitch in no circumstance. They absolutely could not.

 

[gary69]

Knew they would. He's been taking heat for his NT performances so I put him to score on a parlay because I figured his teammates would want to quiet the noise for him. Thought there was a decent chance they'd try to get him on the board, especially in a group game against a shitty team.

Deschamps and Mbappe said in their HT talk that we have to make everybody feel that they belong here, even the worst player amongst us like Dembele.

 

[Edmonton East]

Argentina gets that PK 100 out of 100 times.....that's the issue.

 

[Live in the Now]

For the record I would give Iraq a decent chance against Bosnia-Czech-Scotland and plenty of other teams. They got drawn into the wrong group.

I do think there are too many Asian teams here but it’s not like you get to handpick the teams. They have to have a good enough mentality to earn their spot.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Come on Mbappé, gotta tie that guy from Argentina.

 

[gary69]

Mbappe still had speed at the last minute of regulation, but the finish was lacking there.

 

[Karterthadon]

Mbappe still had speed at the last minute of regulation, but the finish was lacking there.

They can't be that tired, they had an entire game of rest between the two halves

 

[GKJ]

Haaland

 

[cgf]

AFC has too many teams which are total rubbish. I know they want to avoid a UEFA heavy WC but it just makes sense for fan interest to add more UEFA slots.

It will never happen though since there's too much money to be made from the middle east.

Meh, only ~5 teams determine who wins the tourney. The rest are just there to give the early rounds more color & the gap between the bottom teams and the uefa teams that fell short isn’t significant.

 

[Moncherry]

AFC has too many teams which are total rubbish. I know they want to avoid a UEFA heavy WC but it just makes sense for fan interest to add more UEFA slots.

It will never happen though since there's too much money to be made from the middle east.

And whenever one of those teams gets a good result, you start crooning about the game being rigged.

A lot of teams would look hopeless against France and Norway. Some of the UEFA teams shouldn't be here either.