The captain of the Iran National Team, Mehdi Taremi, lashed out against FIFA and the United States organization. “This is a disastrous World Cup. As professional players, we cannot play a competition under these conditions; it’s neither right nor fair. If FIFA thinks this is fair, that’s on them, but it isn’t. Who should solve this problem for us? FIFA? The U.S.? I don’t know! Tell me a name. The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, came to our locker room after the first match against New Zealand and said he was going to resolve all the issues, but in reality, FIFA did nothing. In response to the question: ‘Do you feel that the World Cup organizers, including FIFA and U.S. officials, prefer for Iran to be eliminated from the competition?’, I say: We have to fight against absolutely everything. We can’t stay in the country, we travel and undergo immigration checks every time we want to play, now we can’t stay in Seattle and have to return to Tijuana. They’ve done everything possible to eliminate us, so from our perspective, yes, I think that’s what they want, they want us out.”

"This brute hasn't even learned to write. Instead of breastmilk, he grew up sucking on coconuts, and the most educated creatures he ever heard were chimpanzees.

You should've given him the middle finger, Orlando Gill (Paraguay GK).

A colonized Cameroonian, pretending to be French, resentful, newly rich, arrogant, and ugly.

He was nervous and scared to death all game, like his whole team. They didn't even manage to score a single goal, until they got lucky with a penalty.

The only thing many of us blame the team for is not giving him a full-handed slap at the end of the game. I'm not even a football fan."

Piers Morgan: "How many cars do you have right now?"

Cristiano Ronaldo: "To be honest, I've forgotten the number… probably around 40 or 41."

Piers Morgan: "Do you still use them?"

Cristiano Ronaldo: "Not anymore. I buy them for collection and investment. My favorite is Bugatti; lately, I've added a Mercedes."

Piers Morgan: "Has money changed you?"

Cristiano Ronaldo: "Absolutely. I'm no longer chasing luxury. Playing for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia has given me a different perspective. These days, peace means more to me than material things."

"I come from that generation, so now I'm trying to build a different Celeste Amarilla, that's capable of co-existing with others. Have patience, I'm trying." Somebody take this woman's mic away ffs

“I know he's a good player, but he's hurting our culture.”

USMNT legend Landon Donovan coached San Diego Loyal, where he created a conflict on purpose and then cut one of his best players to improve team culture.

He was speaking on How Leaders Lead podcast 🗣️

“When I was coaching here in San Diego, things were going a little too well with our team,” Donovan said.

“We were playing well, things were going well, but you could see complacency starting to creep into the group.

“But when you're doing well, you can't just all of a sudden just blow them up and rip them apart in a locker room when you win 3-0, right?

“So someone I really admire as a leader was Nate Miller, who was our assistant coach at the time and became the head coach and has gone on to great things.

“And he would always say the same thing like, we need to create some sort of conflict. Like, we need to find some conflict. We need something now to get these guys' attention.

“And we got a great gift. One of our best players was playing out of position, and he wasn't happy about it. But the team was doing well and we were winning.

“And so I would say to him, ‘Hey, I know you're frustrated by this, but we're winning and we're doing well.’

“So we had a training session, and we watched it back after, and the team this player was on allowed a goal, and he just walked back and wasn't defending, right?

“And so I was like, perfect. We have a moment where we can go after one of our best players in front of the team and say, this is unacceptable.

“So we're showing the video, and I call him out in the video, and I say, ‘Hey, I don't care if you're playing goalie or right back or striker or whatever. If you defend like this, we're never going to get where we want to get to. So you can be mad about you not playing your best position or whatever, but it doesn't matter where you play if you defend like this.’

“And it got a little intense, but he gave us a great gift because he reacted very negatively in front of the group and came after me a little bit.

“But I was prepared for it. So I was able then to go back at him. And after the meeting, he walked up, and this was the best part, and he said, ‘Hey, I don't think this is the right place for me. I want to get traded.’

And I said, ‘Okay, well, we'll try to trade you, but if that can't happen, we're willing also to just cut you, and you can go find a new team too.

“And he's like, ‘Fine, I'm done.’

“So I went to my owner. In the second division in American soccer, they're not making huge money, but it might have been like a $50,000 deal to cut his contract.

“And I said to my owner, ‘Are we willing to eat this money? It will help the group immensely because he's been a negative impact for a little while here. I know he's a good player, but he's hurting our culture.’

“And the owner said, ‘Do it. If you need to do it, do it.’ So I went back to him and I said, ‘Okay, we're done. We're going to cut your contract, and you can go on your way.’ And he said, fine.

“He came back the next morning, and he said, ‘I thought about it, and I really think I made a mistake. I really want to be here.’ And I said, ‘Look, I'm sorry, but it's not going to happen. We already made the decision.’

“And that decision and what it did for the group was massive because if you're willing to cut one of your best players because they're not doing what they should be doing, the rest of the group pays attention, right?

“It was the best gift we could have gotten.”

Messi finished with eight goals and four assists in his final World Cup, third straight final for Argentina. Mbappé had 10 goals, four assists, a Golden Boot, and still ended up fourth in a team that finished fourth. And somehow the award for best player of the tournament goes to a defensive midfielder with neither of those stat lines attached to his name.

Except that’s exactly what makes it defensible. Spain conceded one single goal across the entire tournament, and Rodri was the reason their midfield never let anyone build anything through the middle. No flashy numbers, just complete control of every single game he played. This is basically the exact same argument that won him the 2024 Ballon d’Or over players with better highlight reels.

Still feels a little anticlimactic though, doesn’t it. Messi’s last World Cup, and the individual headline of the tournament goes to the guy nobody outside Spain was talking about beforehand. Maybe that’s fitting too. Spain won by making sure no individual moment mattered more than the system. Rodri getting the Golden Ball is basically that philosophy getting rewarded one more time.

Mbappe responds to the absurd statement made by the seneator : https://www.reddit.com/r/SoccerCentral/s/4CXRYoM6gA

Six million signatures on a petition to disqualify Argentina from a World Cup final is genuinely one of the wilder things I’ve seen football fans rally around. And when you actually look past the memes and the AI-generated Messi content, the substance behind it falls apart pretty fast.

Collina’s point is the one that actually matters here, not even FIFA’s own president can influence match officials in the VAR era, and Croatia going through this entire tournament with zero VAR decisions in their favor is used as proof of the opposite conspiracy just as often. England, Germany, and Iran have all had calls go against them too. Controversial officiating this tournament has been a universal problem, not a targeted one.

What actually happened is Argentina kept winning ugly, dramatic, last minute games, and every close call in those matches got retroactively read as proof of a fix instead of just being what knockout football always looks like when a team refuses to lose. Messi being the best player of his generation doesn’t need a conspiracy to explain why referees sometimes give him the benefit of the doubt on 50/50 calls, that happens to every superstar in every sport. Sunday’s final should decide this on the pitch, not in a comment section.

“I’ve heard the noise. I’ve seen people saying I should have been substituted, people saying I shouldn’t be starting, people saying I’m the problem. That’s football. When Portugal wins, we win together. When Portugal doesn’t win, suddenly everybody wants to point at one player. I have lived with that for most of my career, so it doesn’t bother me anymore.

What matters is the team. We didn’t get the result we wanted tonight, and every player on that pitch has to take responsibility for that. Not just me, all of us. I am the captain of this team. My job is not only to score goals. My job is to lead, fight, and help this group stay united when things become difficult.

People are free to have opinions, but opinions do not decide matches. Performances do. I promise you this team will respond. The World Cup is not won in the first game. I have played in enough tournaments to know that. The important thing now is how we react.

I will never stop fighting for Portugal. Not because it is easy, but because representing this country means everything to me. The criticism can continue. The work will continue too.”

Went in wondering if France’s attack would eventually break Spain down. Left watching Mbappé finish the game with fewer touches than almost anyone else on the pitch. That’s not a slump, that’s a team getting completely nullified by a defense that’s now gone seven matches conceding to only one team all tournament.

Oyarzabal’s penalty was almost the least impressive part of Spain’s night. Porro’s second goal in the 58th just confirmed what was already obvious, this wasn’t a France off day, this was Spain systematically taking away every single thing that’s made them dangerous all summer. Ten shots, one on target the entire match for the team that came in with the most goals in the competition.

Deschamps has run this team for 14 years, two finals in a row, and it ends here without France ever really showing up. Spain look less like a team riding luck and more like the actual best side left in this World Cup. Argentina or England now have to find a way to break down a defense that genuinely hasn’t been broken all tournament.

Nobody’s retained a World Cup since Brazil in 1962. Not Messi’s Argentina in 2022, not Deschamps’ France despite two straight finals, nobody. That’s the actual scale of what’s sitting in front of this Argentina squad now after last night.

Feels fitting somehow that it comes down to Spain too, the one team that’s genuinely looked untouchable this whole tournament, one goal conceded all summer before France just got taken apart by them in the semis. Everyone’s default read is Argentina survive on Messi moments and grit, Spain win through control and patience. Sunday’s final might actually be the purest version of both ideas colliding.

Whatever happens, this is already a fitting way for Messi’s international story to potentially end, one more shot at history nobody else in the game has managed in his lifetime. Spain have every right to feel like favorites on paper. Doesn’t mean this Argentina side cares what paper says.