Quote :

"took my kids to the argentina / egypt game today and it was incredible - 90:10 argentina:egypt fans in the stadium - the energy was electric"

hell yes

definitely came across as electric on tv

[Edited on July 7, 2026 at 11:32 PM. Reason : .]

7/7/2026 11:31:48 PM

the last 15 min of the Col Sui game was pretty good. and gotta love the drama of penalties

7/8/2026 9:22:29 AM

That Argentina game was something else. But yeah, that VAR call was ridiculous.

7/8/2026 12:17:06 PM

FIFA has issued a two-game ban for England defender Quansah following his red card in the Mexico game. Pretty ridiculous. Not debating the red card and following one game suspension, but what makes it bad enough for a two game suspension? The guy he tackled wasn't hurt and the tackle clearly didn't have nefarious intent.

Now I'm not one for conspiracy but if England wins vs. Norway and you look at their next likely opponent in the semis...

7/9/2026 2:22:22 PM

I’m not surprised at all. This was a bad foul, contact to mid leg, full speed, studs up. You can’t even say he got unlucky because he was in full control of his movement and the ball and the Mexican player were on unchanging vectors so there was no uncertainty in the play.

If the Mexican players leg wasn’t in the air he could have easily fractured his lower leg.

7/9/2026 2:40:16 PM

Hahaha that Englishman was laying down playing grabby-ankle while Norway scored a goal.

7/11/2026 5:42:51 PM

Viking ship stops here...

7/11/2026 7:56:57 PM

I feel like I haven't seen a yellow card for kicking the ball away for the entire world cup and I haven't seen a red card for covering your mouth while talking to an opponent since group stage..

7/11/2026 9:36:24 PM

To me, this game/tournament seem rigged, to me.

7/11/2026 10:40:36 PM

Man that red card really sucked cause the Swiss had Argentina on the ropes and we could have had a real fun end to this one

7/11/2026 10:45:53 PM

rare instance of VAR being good, actually

7/11/2026 10:49:33 PM

This game has been mostly extremely boring

7/11/2026 11:29:44 PM

for sure

although Argentina are 10 minutes away from possibly not getting away with playing with their food

[Edited on July 11, 2026 at 11:31 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2026 11:30:41 PM

They couldn't have just done that at 89'??

7/11/2026 11:33:18 PM

sick goal to win

7/11/2026 11:36:15 PM

1v4 and 2v3 in FIFA rankings for the semifinals.

7/11/2026 11:43:58 PM

That sounds good, like the process worked

7/11/2026 11:45:07 PM

I didn't realize how easy Argentina's path has been, Switzerland the first top 15 team they played and Swiss probably weren't top 15 before this week.

7/11/2026 11:48:29 PM

^ It's almost like being the #2 seed is a good thing

7/11/2026 11:49:57 PM

It’s not quite that straightforward but yeah being good has its perks

7/11/2026 11:55:58 PM

Quote :

"1v4 and 2v3 in FIFA rankings for the semifinals."

to me this makes the whole tournament feel like a waste of time. they should have just started here.

7/12/2026 10:13:03 PM

that’s a damn lazy take

not sure how you could watch England win at Azteca and think that it was predetermined that they’d make the semis

both of Argentinas escapes were amazing as well

7/13/2026 1:31:16 AM

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/facetious

7/13/2026 8:40:48 AM

It's hard to inspire future generations of soccer players when you know that teams 5-48 have a really slim chance of making the finals.

7/13/2026 11:24:38 AM

^

Yep. And if they score goals against teams 1-4, those goals may be disallowed on the basis of fouls committed 90 yards away and 17s prior.

7/13/2026 12:00:52 PM

They Always Come Back

7/13/2026 8:23:56 PM

Superstars fill stadiums. That’s all there is to it. Sure it’s a cynical hot take but if you follow the money, that’s where it leads.

I would love love love to see an underdog make it this far, and while and underdog might draw in curious fans, people are going to pay to hopefully see some big names.

And what about the plans to expand to 64 teams for 2030? Will those group stage games be empty filler? I admit, I do miss there not being a constant stream of soccer on TV like there was a few weeks ago.

7/14/2026 12:12:37 PM

don’t think FIFA had to worry about ticket sales for the Semis/Final regardless of star power


[Edited on July 14, 2026 at 4:33 PM. Reason : .]

7/14/2026 4:26:50 PM

shocked that France isn't walking away with this game but since I'm going to the 3rd place match I prefer to see France since I've already seen Spain in WC 2010 and 2026

there have been so many late goals tho - still could go either way

7/14/2026 4:36:50 PM

Au revoir, the better team won.

7/14/2026 5:02:13 PM

All that attacking talent, just neutralized

7/14/2026 9:35:45 PM

What a service into the box

7/15/2026 4:16:49 PM

And that’s what happens when you try to defend for 40’ against the best team in the world

7/15/2026 4:48:38 PM

England shutting the bed

7/15/2026 4:54:36 PM

Unreal

7/15/2026 4:54:47 PM

It ain’t coming home

7/15/2026 5:08:42 PM

guess pretty much everyone wanting spain to win now?

7/15/2026 5:24:34 PM

But now we can watch England and France renew their hated rivalry in the meaningless 3rd Place game!

7/15/2026 5:42:21 PM

^^

Spain is easier to like, as both a team and country, so yeah, I'll be rooting for them over Argentina.

It should actually be a great match and hopefully a fitting end to a rather enjoyable World Cup.

7/15/2026 6:08:12 PM

These teams keep getting a lead, going super defensive, and losing smh.

Also Argentina

7/15/2026 9:06:03 PM

See if we can tell when England put on MORE defenders

7/15/2026 9:20:48 PM

What is that graph showing? Terrible form not to label your axes!

Argentina face action after waving Falklands banner

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c935pgr4dklo



Oops!

7/15/2026 10:01:36 PM

^^ I'll take a stab at it for fun. Note: I was not able to watch the match.
As time goes on in the game, some wonky algorithm is predicting how many goals each team will finish with based on level of play.
The first half was a wash with each team predicted to finish the whole game with 0 goals.
Suddenly Eng scores a goal at 55'. Their gpg shoots up to around 0.45. (Even though they technically have 1 whole point)
Arg immediately goes on the offensive and their gpg hits ~0.75 at 75' Their goal scored at 85' puts them at a 1.1 gpg prediction for the match. From then on Arg stays aggressive and ends with a 1.84 gpg prediction. That goal at 92' really boosted their average. 1.84 is really close to 2, so the predictor was technically right.
Eng didn't do shit from 80 minutes on and ended with a 0.53 avg. 0.53 would round to one, so they barely earned that one goal.

7/15/2026 10:37:14 PM

The axes are, in fact, labeled.

X axis says "minutes" y axis says "xg" which stands for Expected Goals, which is the likelihood of a shot to be a goal


Picture looks funny bc i had to upload here, my normal trick for getting Twitter pics wasn't working

[Edited on July 15, 2026 at 10:53 PM. Reason : E]

Shoulda tried bsky first


The left and right here are shot charts, with bigger circles reflecting a higher xG shot



https://bsky.app/profile/optaanalyst.optajoe.com/post/3mqpn7usjzs2j
[Edited on July 15, 2026 at 10:54 PM. Reason : E]

[Edited on July 15, 2026 at 10:57 PM. Reason : More]

7/15/2026 10:52:43 PM