Post
Topic
Board Gambling discussion
Re: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread
by
Ale88
on 09/07/2025, 22:13:54 UTC
Ok missed that and thank you for clarification. Now two players playing for Manchester City and Roma is definitely fostering progress within the Uzbekistan team as a whole. While two players can't turn them into a World Cup title contender, you could see from Georgia how much impact some top players can have on the team. Mamardaschvili and Mikautadze improved Georgia's game so much that you can see two players can do something, but there are limits.
Exactly, that is the point: these new football nations are growing a lot, only 10 years ago nobody would have thought that a player from Uzbekistan would be paid 40 million euros. Georgia is another great example, back in the days they only Kaladze and a couple of decent strikers like Arveladze and Kobiashvili, now they have a few very good players and Kvaratskhelia, despite his young age, is already by far the greatest player they ever had. The goalkeeper, Mamardashvili, will shortly join Liverpool. This means the football movement is growing a lot in these countries.
Despite having too many controversies and corruption and other problems I am personally feeling FIFA is doing enough for soccer just because of this now in last few years many countries are able to increase their quality and now everyone is ready for having his best in soccer and want to play into FIFA World Cup even now just 48 countries allowed.
I'm not sure FIFA has anything to do with the growth of some specific countries, for me it's just because the local government chose to invest more, and if you have a plan sooner or later you're getting some results. At the end today football means exposure, even a single player is able to put a whole country on the map because before fans used to follow a team now, especially with social media and many fans from countries with low football culture, they follow specific players. Very few people knew about Qatar before the World Cup, the exposure level they got because they hosted the competition is huge. Football became way more than sport, now it's tourism, it's power, it's influence. Of course that sad thing is that everything is only about money, now more than ever.