Actually, I rightly predicted that Japan would win thier group, Morocco going to the semis, Argentina beating Croatia in the semis and France losing to Argentina in the final through penalties. I was totally right. A small detail I missed to mention is that I made all these predictions after the WC final, but that's not really a biggie right?
The stars of this world cup were Japan that became Super Sayan against Spain and Germany. Croatia who had a spectacular second run, Morocco who where a real life movie story and of course Argentina with Messi being the last champion of the old football guard that won a dream that he d been chasing for almost 20 years. This Cup was batshit insane and I loved it
Morocco were the team of the tournament. They were a brilliant team to watch and to see an African nation reach the semis while beating some strong opponents was an amazing feat.
The team of the tournament are the winners. That is the point in a tournament. Morocco were the most impressive and biggest overacheivers but if the were the team of the tournament they would have beaten France
To think some Spanish talked very harshly about that team, like they are anti-football. They played withing their means having no abundance of stars (but some amazing key players, and the rest of the team actually kept up with them), with great tactics, discipline and among all else a huge heart! Props to Moroco! Hope they can build up from this amazing result and it not be a fluke
@@jorgeherrera1074 Possible, but it would be quite hard to justify over the player who scored a hattrick in the final. Messi had a fine tournament, but not excellent.
Not really, Japan's counter attacking style wouldn't have worked against Morocco and Neysri probably bags a header from a cross or set piece. As long as Morocco get that first goal they completely kill off the game.
@Sigsten Bockgård They played counter attacking football because they know they cannot compete against the likes of Spain and Germany toe to toe. They do not play like that in the Asian Cup, where they are one of the best teams in the tournament. This is probably the only time you watched Japan playing so I'm not too surprised..
The end of an era competition. So many iconic names for whom this will most likely be their last World Cup. Messi, Ronaldo, Di Maria, Modric, Perisic, Casemiro, Thiago Silva, Busquets, Suarez, Cavani, Godin, Neuer, Muller, Bale, Lewondowski, Hazard, De Bruyne, Lukaku. The list is huge. So amazing competition, but also a slightly sombre one.
@@parker-ii7fg not sure about those last two. Even Hazard is still young enough and COULD make a comeback, but I don't really expect him to. But Lukaku definitely isn't stopping, imo. You realise he's ONLY 29 years old yet, right? And KDB 31 years old, in the role he plays he could easily still go for one more WC IF they reach it (but seeing there'll be 48 countries participating, they should). Other than those, I agree with your list. Most iconic to me are definitely CR7, Messi and Modric.
@@parker-ii7fg Not sure on Casemiro, de Bruyne and Lukaku... but the others yes, most likely. There's alwats a couple 37/38 y.old's former glories who tend to appear in World Cups
Aussie here, you're forgiven for not expecting anything out of us. Nobody here expected us to do anything either. Miracle run that hopefully hasn't been too soured by the FFA, APL, and OSM
Martinez wasn't the best GK at the tournament, but he was the goalkeeper of the tournament, you don't have to be the best to win the award, you have to be the most impactful and Martinez was definitely the most impactful GK in his 2 penalty shoot outs and making 2 last second game saving saves in 2 different games, add that all up Martinez affected the outcome of 3 different games, and all 3 games were in the Knockouts, so yeah it's obvious he deserved the golden glove.
Considering that there's silver and bronze awards for the best player and highest scorer, why there isn't also a silver glove and bronze glove? This was the perfect time to introduce that, both Livakovic and Bono deserved that recognition
14:45 It's okay, Alfie, Feds Square was brilliant down here. Rather impressive that all of the positivity surrounding it was wrecked by a fortnight after the tournament, but still, it was brilliant.
I actually surprisingly guessed quite a lot,dutch and senegal,england and usa,I missed australia but guessed france,guessed arg and poland,guessed japan as first lol but thought germany would be second and not spain,guessed portugal and south korea and guessed brazil and switzerland,so only australia and spain I got wrong,then guessed dutch vs usa,england vs senegal,argentina vs denmark(australia),france vs poland,croatia vs japan,brazil vs south korea,portugal vs switzerland and I wrongly guessed a Germany win vs Morocco,then I guessed arg vs netherlands,also Croatia vs Brazil(I'm Croatian so that kinda explains it),france vs england and I thought Germany will beat Portugal,so I guessed all quarters exits,then I had arg winning against my Croatia and France winning against Germany,I had Croatia winning 3rd vs Germany and Arg winning the cup vs France,so yeah,not bad at all,only had a couple of mistakes and had a bunch of them in the group stage points(had a couple of teams having 9 points,England,Brazil,France) but in general,best prediction I ever made,if only I had Morocco beating germany I would have guessed most of the knockouts,but lets be honest nobody would guess Morocco beating Germany(Spain),but the rest of it I'm very happy with,just pissed I didnt put any money on it😂
To be fair Alfie, I predicted Argentina to beat France, the problem is that I thought it would be in the round of 16 And I also said Europe would play South America in the final and I was right, but I said it would be Brazil vs Belgium, I seem to be rivalling the Irish Guy in my predictions 😂😂
Funnily, my anticipation for who would play in the final was 100% on, which I expected wouldn't be the case. Almost everything else I expected WOULD be the case ... was rubbish. Loved every second of it! :D
Alfie, you messed up on Cameroon. They did not get eliminated in their second group game. They got a draw against Serbia and only went out because Switzerland got a win against Serbia, if Serbia won by 1 goal or drew, they would have advanced.
Yeah, so about Germany: no actual German football fan would have believed they'd make it past the quarters max, many even believed in a Group Stage elimination right from the start. To me, it's still insane how highly rated that German team was from the point of view of some international watchers. The whole discourse in Germany about that world cup was not about football at all (just like in Russia), and it proved detrimental yet again. On that team, maybe three or four players wanted to be there at all and it showed.
@@pongomb Mostly about the looks. About how to adequately approach the coverage itself and represent "European values" and morals. While everyone in their right mind should def. condemn the WC going to Qatar and their human right violations in the progress, the way the German officials did it was nothing short of embarrassing. Symbolic gestures, PR stunts and all that jazz nobody could take seriously because it was so awkwardly try-hard. It backfired brutally and the team wasn't able to focus on football.
And nevermind that Germany ostracized Ozil for having a political opinion and denouncing a literal genocide, the germans can never talk about human rights
@@charliezz6746 lol pretty poor, lost 1-0 to england (who ended in semis), drew with czech (who ended up at quarter finals) and won 3-1 vs scotland. and played epic match vs Spain after that, who lost at semi finals to Italy who were champions...
@@jdalbion I mean compares to 2018 they were not as good I don't think many expected Croatia to do as well as they did in this world cup when seeing how they did at the euros.
@@charliezz6746 there were 18 new players compared to 2018. ofc they needed some time to fit. but even there, they played no that bad. and during wc qualifiers & nations league, you could see that team is shaping up and that depth is even better compared to 2018. For next WC Croatia will be even better, because we have 3-4 good young strikers who will strengthen team even more. defense is very young, avg age now 22-23. Midfield is good as always, also plenty of top talents (sucic, majer etc.), only thing that is not that great is attack for now, but for next euro & wc, attack will be also very good.
Alfie do a video about all young player award winners at every world cup and how their careers turned out or how their careers are going (in the case of the last 3 tournaments)
To be fair to you, almost everyone was backing Qatar to do well as most were under the assumption they had bribed other teams in their group to play badly. Looking back, that was a dumb prediction on everyone’s part 😂😂but even without bribing they should have done better anyway considering they’re Asian champions AND we’re playing on home soil
Video idea: best 7 World Cup finals - as many claim this one was the best ever, which has a lot arguments for it, but maybe it is a bit too much recency bias?
Don't feel bad, Alfie - it never crossed my mind that Argentina could ACTUALLY win (as they're always "favourites" and always bottle it in the end) I genuinely thought it would be either France or England (the match outcome was 50/50 for me) Obviously I never expected Morocco to do so well, Spain and Germany going out early didn't really surprised me, Belgium though - did. Also Croatia played well as I expected them to.
For those wanting to know what happened in Australia, here's a condensed version of events... Around a week ago the governing body (APL) announced that for though had done a deal to hold the next 3 a leagues man's and women's grand finals in Sydney! This upset majority of fans, players etc as all previous grand finals have the host has won the right by winning it through the finals process. There was side spread condemnation of this from fans and players alike including Craig Goodwin (who some people many know from the world cup) who had quotes misrepresented to show support for the decision, come out on his social media saying he was against it. They had a meeting of clubs bosses which agreed to go ahead with the deal, however I can't remember which club it was but a club boss came out saying the meeting was a farce and they were forced to go along with it or threaten to ruin the league as a whole due to needing the finances from said deal.... So from all this fans organised protests such as walking out at 20th minute or sitting in the stand the camera are on so it looks like no fans are in the stadium etc.... Comes to Saturday just gone and there have already been 2 or 3 games and we get to the Melbourne derby, Melbourne victory v Melbourne city (part of city football group) some victory active supporters bring flares into the stadium and around 20th minute throw them on the field one ends up in the Melbourne city goal box, city keeper picks it up and throws it. Some say he was aiming for a bin to put it out others day he wasn't aiming, my view he threw it without really looking and harder than he realised, flare goes into stand and again reports differ soem say people were already storming pitch others say once flare went into the crowd they stormed the pitch. Regardless there was a pitch invasion and the city keeper was assaulted with a bin to the face which left a cut and concussion, also the ref was assaulted with a punch to the face and a camera man. I would argue the perpetrators were not really fans and there has been a number of comments etc saying that there was a small group agitating to do this kind of thing. Investigations are under way I believe 3 men have handed themselves into police and have been.charged with numerous offences. Police have released imagines of numerous other people they are wanting to talk to. So powers that be making stupid decisions based on money started a sh!t storm of angry fans and further events lead to said explosion
Probably should also point out both media and other people are trying to put the blame on the city keeper from his throwing the flare back which ended up in the crowd, my point of view definitely wrong to blame the keeper. Also if you are interested you should look it up and find out your own information!
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 true, in hindsight he should have handled it better, but it clearly wasn't intentionally done! You also have to remember the game was still going and the flares could have been a hindrance to him stopping a potential goal so of course he is going to get rid of it as quick as possible. Imagine he does nothing and victory score dye to him being blinded from the flare smoke..... Before you say wouldn't happen, I think Liverpool it was lost a game to maybe Sunderland from a goal where the shit ricocheted off a beach ball that had got on the pitch and it stood so stranger things have happened!
Going through past world cup, I realized many champions actually lost their first game. Seems it serves like an early wake-up call to put your head down and focus, since such an upset as what happened in this tournament with Argentina and Saudi Arabia could have mentally killed them but seems it actually strengthened their resolve!
@@applehack97 lol you are right! For some reason I remembered the Italy 82 and England 66 ties as defeats. (Italy in fact didn't even win any of their grouo games that cup) I guess such an abysmal performance by Italy made me think there was a defeat there. Should check the stats rather than trusting my memory next time ^%
@@mafiousbj Italy in particular has had a history of being a slow starter in the World Cup. In addition to 1982, they also lost their opening game in 1994 and finished in a 4 way tie in their group (all 4 teams finished with 4 points and 0 goal difference, Italy only advanced as a third place team thanks to one more goal scored than Norway), then they ended up recovering and reaching the final.
I don't think it was necessary to replay all the clips from the other video ^^, but I am of course happy to be featured :D. I had some proper predictions and some bad ones as most people I suppose, but that's the beauty of the game. This world cup was an absolute banger and I loved it, aside from the whole Qatar thing, of course.
I got right: Japan and Spain progressing the group stage and facing Croatia and Morocco respectively. I also got those results right. I also predicted the match and result of Portugal vs. Morocco. I also predicted Messi winning the thing (he stole it in my eyes). What I couldn't predict was France reaching the final.
Neuer missed some pretty easy saves. He hasn’t been at his best for a while. A shame as Ter Stegen has been brilliant recently, but Neuer’s rep and status at Bayern sees him start as #1 keeper. Maybe Ter Stegen would’ve kept one of Japan’s goals out.
Reminds me of 2018/19 when neuer was so out of it. Everyone was calling for ter stegen Just for neuer to remember that he’s the best keeper in the world
@@thebigquack6945 the best in the world is someone who appears in the big times, not just against freudcschagennntengeizt FC in the Bundesliga, neuer was the best for two seasons, Courtois has already proven to be way better than him
Those were my predictions: Group A: 1. Netherlands 2. Ecuador 3. Senegal 4. Qatar Group B: 1. England 2. Wales 3. Iran 4. USA Group C: 1. Argentina 2. Poland 3. Mexico 4. Saudi Arabia Group D: 1. Denmark (I went really bold there) 2. France 3. Australia 4. Tunisia Group E: 1. Spain 2. Japan 3. Germany 4. Costa Rica Group F: 1. Croatia 2. Belgium 3. Morocco 4. Canada Group G: 1. Serbia 2. Switzerland 3. Brazil 4. Cameroon Group H: 1. Portugal 2. Uruguay 3. Ghana 4. South Korea R16’s: Netherlands-Wales 3:1 Ecuador-England 1:2 Argentina-France 3:2 Poland-Denmark 1:1 (1:2 after Extra Time) Spain-Belgium 3:1 Japan-Croatia 1:1 (4:5 after Penalties) Serbia-Uruguay 0:0 (1:0 in ET) Switzerland-Portugal 2:1 QF: Netherlands-Argentina 2:0 England-Denmark 1:3 Spain-Serbia 5:2 Croatia-Switzerland 3:0 SF: Netherlands-Spain 1:1 (7:6 after Penalties) Denmark-Croatia 0:1 Match for Third Place: Spain-Denmark 4:1 Final: Netherlands-Croatia 2:2 (4:4 after ET; 9:7 after Penalties)
I like how you acknowledge that Denmark winning their group was a bold pick, then just casually had Brazil going out in the group stage with no comment haha. I mean don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think Brazil was going to win it all or anything, but you really buried the lead there :P
Dont feel bad about Australia. As an Aussie myself, I was surprised Pikachu face about Australia wining 2 games too. I didnt expect them to win any games at all.
14:49 - I’m an Aussie but I have no idea what you’re referring to when you mention you are ‘saddened by post World Cup events’ Am I living under a rock lol, what happened?
Actually I wasn't that wrong with some prediction especially on the knockout stage: -Since 2002 Brazil loses the Quaterfinals (Except 2014 for being hosts) with European teams. And these loses came by ego fight (2006) or because the team lacks of talent and/or leadership. Brazil doesn't have the sense of suffering and surviving, so when an European team came as main adversary they tend to be smaller and didn't react properly (Like Argentina did in this WC) -England is just jinxed. When I saw Giroud's goal, I knew England was screwed.
Like you said...what matters is that you pick the champion...Well Done Alfie FWIW I also thought England would find a way to sneak past France... In closing...GREATEST WC Final EVER! #NotDebatable
DAY 60: Hey Alfie, could you do a video on the life, career, controversies and tragedy of Justin Fashanu. It'd be your best video yet and it's a criminally underheard story. ❤️
This Aussie forgives you Alfie. We all wrote them off. We were glad to wrong is an understatement. But within 2 weeks of one great football moment for our country, we had the shitshow of the grand final decision and the events at my home town
@@anteveic327 They began by making a decision to lock in the Grand final in sydney for 3 years. the active supporter groups began walking out at the 20 minute mark as a protest, except in melbourne during the derby, a group of victory fans stormed the field and attacked Citys keeper Tom Glover with a steel Bucket. Since then Victory are only allowed members at the ground for their home games, and for 3 away matches no travelling fans
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 u say this every comment someone says they didn't expect Australia to get out of the group..... 1. Overwhelming consensus amongst football followers in Australia was this. 2. You can type whatever trash you want and repeat it however many times you want. No one is going to believe u, one can say anything on the internet 👏👏👏👏
Why did you pick Ghana over Korea? Ended up being a good prediction but the rankings were so different I thought any standard analysis would have put group h as POR, URU, KOR, GHA in that order
Alfie, can you make a video re the goings on with the APL, A-Leagues and fans in Australia I’d love to hear your input on the topic as it’s been absolutely massive in my day to day life currently
I got 13 out of 16 teams getting out of the groups. Also had the England France side completely right with France getting beat in the final unfortunately I had brazil winning it with Spain & Argentina making the Semi finals.
Probably because England fans wanted to banish the Hand of God in 1986 and bring the football back home after 18 months ago it failed at Wembley, but they wasted a lot with penalty miss again.
@@cremapastelera00 Brazil and France are also looking for a good fortune in 2024. I think Brazil will win the World Cup in 2026. European teams will have to wait until 2038.
Expectation: Brazil lost to Germany again but Reality is Croatia beat Brazil by penalty shootout because Germany eliminated from group stage for the 2nd time in a row
Reality is Brazil lost to Europeean team but not Germany because they got eliminated from the group stage back to back instead Croatia won by penalty shootout
Alfie dnt we think its worth looking into qatars asain cup win ??........cause based on the performances here i cannot see how they were able to beat anyone of any quality let alone japan !!! was the tournament fixed to make them look better than they are in the lead up to the world cup and to justify their fifa world ranking ??🤔🤔
I literally predicted that it's gonna be Arg - 2 - 2 - Fra on the normal time! Same in the extra time and Win on 4-3 by France. (Yea I was on France) And at 75', I wrote on my left hand : ' I thank you Mbappe, for this wonderful goal that made Arg - 2 - 1 - Fra. Really didn't want to lose to 2-0' !!!!!! Then at 80', Mbappe scored a penalty! You could guess how my reaction was!
@@namesurname8812 idk if it was fixed but in numerous games all across the board (not just Argentina games but other) there was dodgy referee calls and in my opinion when a game is close a few calls given against you or for you can go a long way to helping you get a result
@@namesurname8812 what I will say however, was that it was strange how everyone wanted messi to win, and how it was “his destiny” to win almost like anything else but messi winning the tournament would have been a poor World Cup, whether that means there was stuff going on in the background idk, but it’s happened before like in Korea for example there was definitely some sort of match fixing there when Korea played as the host nation and got tons of calls for them while other teams would get cards left and right
Picking the goalkeeper of one of the teams you expect to go out in the semi final to win the golden ball really might be the strangest and one of the worst predictions I've seen on UA-cam 🤣🤣
Maybe that was based on theoretical penalty shootouts heroics... much like Alvarez. But on the whole yes, far-fetched prediction on the grounds of being goalkeeper and those rarely getting much love when compared to field players, strikers and playmakers in particular.
Same here and totally rigged and I am about to boycott myself from even watching the 2026's FIFA World Cup edition onwards,good friend Paul Short!!!🏋️♂️
@@jldch26 mentioning something doesn't mean he has seen it and has fully understood it, a brief glance at a headline could be all he needs to mention it Good try though
what ?? this same argument again when all the penalties have been proven time and time again to be valid, why are you crying ?? you're either french or a delusional ronaldo fan
Almost all predictions of World Cup have gone wrong: 1.Germany, Belgium, and Uruguay reached the knockout stages. 2.Brazil, England, and Portugal reached the semifinals. 3.France continued the champions curse. 4.Denmark, Serbia, and Senegal became major dark horses. 5.Brazil and England meet in the Final after their continental championship's final defeat at home soil, with Brazil winning sixth title.
Best German players in the premier league of all time. (Day 431) I will not give up until the video is made or Alfie himself tells me to stop. Everyone else telling me that will be ignored. If you don't believe my number, just go back to the previous videos. I'm at the bottom most of the time, but I'm there.
No, 2006 was the worst one. Too many yellow and red cards, especially the Portugal vs Netherlands game with 16 yellows and 4 reds and the Croatia vs Australia where referee mistook the third yellow at the end of the game. The 2014 was the best World Cup ever before Qatar, with big teams played better like Argentina, Germany, and Netherlands. But the World Cup was also overshadowed by Brazil's 1-7 disaster in the semifinal against Germany.
Actually, I rightly predicted that Japan would win thier group, Morocco going to the semis, Argentina beating Croatia in the semis and France losing to Argentina in the final through penalties. I was totally right.
A small detail I missed to mention is that I made all these predictions after the WC final, but that's not really a biggie right?
*IT IS!*
Bro you're a genius
Not really
You had us in the first half
lol, funny!
I'm astonished that Eto'o actually predicted a semi-final pairing correctly... Like, in all that nonsense he got something quite hard right.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
The stars of this world cup were Japan that became Super Sayan against Spain and Germany. Croatia who had a spectacular second run, Morocco who where a real life movie story and of course Argentina with Messi being the last champion of the old football guard that won a dream that he d been chasing for almost 20 years. This Cup was batshit insane and I loved it
the final round of group games were unreal
@@trollingdeep2080 Yesh. Mbappe was dynamite. The guy is some kind of superhuman.
"Where" describes a location, while "were" is a conjugation of the infinitive verb "to be".
Morocco were the team of the tournament. They were a brilliant team to watch and to see an African nation reach the semis while beating some strong opponents was an amazing feat.
Definitely the revelation of this tournament, yes!
Well done, Morocco. 👍👏
The team of the tournament are the winners. That is the point in a tournament. Morocco were the most impressive and biggest overacheivers but if the were the team of the tournament they would have beaten France
To think some Spanish talked very harshly about that team, like they are anti-football.
They played withing their means having no abundance of stars (but some amazing key players, and the rest of the team actually kept up with them), with great tactics, discipline and among all else a huge heart!
Props to Moroco! Hope they can build up from this amazing result and it not be a fluke
@hahahaitsme720 they were brilliant they never did more but enough and knew their strengths and weaknesses
@HahaHaItsMe they played some of the best football at this tournament?
That save in extra time won Martinez the golden glove on its own. Epic moment.
Couldn't agree more. Best save of the WC hands down (pun intended).
And stole Mbappé the Golden Ball.
@@soundscape26 I'm quite sure Messi would've won the Golden Ball even if France won the final. Same as in 2014.
@@jorgeherrera1074 Possible, but it would be quite hard to justify over the player who scored a hattrick in the final. Messi had a fine tournament, but not excellent.
@@soundscape26 Sort of like Argentina as a whole, slow starting , ok and then all of a sudden they had figured it back out again.
I would kill for a Japan vs Morocco match man. The amount of pure insanity in that match would have been legendary.
Not really, Japan's counter attacking style wouldn't have worked against Morocco and Neysri probably bags a header from a cross or set piece. As long as Morocco get that first goal they completely kill off the game.
@@areebsiddiqui758 well they wouldnt play country attacking football against Morocco
@@logiic8835 are you japans manager?
@Sigsten Bockgård They played counter attacking football because they know they cannot compete against the likes of Spain and Germany toe to toe. They do not play like that in the Asian Cup, where they are one of the best teams in the tournament. This is probably the only time you watched Japan playing so I'm not too surprised..
It would have almost happened if costa rica drew germany and japan drew spain
Despite all the commotion off the field, this was honestly a great WC with lots of interesting twists and a FANTASTIC finale! 👍👏
Agreed, 2002 & this one have been the only World Cup's in my lifetime I properly enjoyed. Great drama & quality throughout it.
The end of an era competition. So many iconic names for whom this will most likely be their last World Cup.
Messi, Ronaldo, Di Maria, Modric, Perisic, Casemiro, Thiago Silva, Busquets, Suarez, Cavani, Godin, Neuer, Muller, Bale, Lewondowski, Hazard, De Bruyne, Lukaku. The list is huge.
So amazing competition, but also a slightly sombre one.
@@parker-ii7fg not sure about those last two. Even Hazard is still young enough and COULD make a comeback, but I don't really expect him to. But Lukaku definitely isn't stopping, imo. You realise he's ONLY 29 years old yet, right? And KDB 31 years old, in the role he plays he could easily still go for one more WC IF they reach it (but seeing there'll be 48 countries participating, they should). Other than those, I agree with your list. Most iconic to me are definitely CR7, Messi and Modric.
@@parker-ii7fg Not sure on Casemiro, de Bruyne and Lukaku... but the others yes, most likely. There's alwats a couple 37/38 y.old's former glories who tend to appear in World Cups
@@dvdv8197 Hazard announced his retirement from international football, so unless the takes that back...
Aussie here, you're forgiven for not expecting anything out of us. Nobody here expected us to do anything either. Miracle run that hopefully hasn't been too soured by the FFA, APL, and OSM
Wrong I'm Australian i predicted Australia to make the round of 16 and lose in the round of 16 before the world cup started
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 Same
The FFA doesn’t exist anymore
I thought there was no way in hell we were getting out of the group. i was gladly proven wrong.
After we were flogged 4-1 by France I thought we would be lucky to get a draw against Tunisia
Martinez wasn't the best GK at the tournament, but he was the goalkeeper of the tournament, you don't have to be the best to win the award, you have to be the most impactful and Martinez was definitely the most impactful GK in his 2 penalty shoot outs and making 2 last second game saving saves in 2 different games, add that all up Martinez affected the outcome of 3 different games, and all 3 games were in the Knockouts, so yeah it's obvious he deserved the golden glove.
Considering that there's silver and bronze awards for the best player and highest scorer, why there isn't also a silver glove and bronze glove? This was the perfect time to introduce that, both Livakovic and Bono deserved that recognition
14:45 It's okay, Alfie, Feds Square was brilliant down here. Rather impressive that all of the positivity surrounding it was wrecked by a fortnight after the tournament, but still, it was brilliant.
To be fair, no one could have possibly predicted half of this world cup
But many predicted Argentina to win it all for the fairytale ending for Messi
I actually surprisingly guessed quite a lot,dutch and senegal,england and usa,I missed australia but guessed france,guessed arg and poland,guessed japan as first lol but thought germany would be second and not spain,guessed portugal and south korea and guessed brazil and switzerland,so only australia and spain I got wrong,then guessed dutch vs usa,england vs senegal,argentina vs denmark(australia),france vs poland,croatia vs japan,brazil vs south korea,portugal vs switzerland and I wrongly guessed a Germany win vs Morocco,then I guessed arg vs netherlands,also Croatia vs Brazil(I'm Croatian so that kinda explains it),france vs england and I thought Germany will beat Portugal,so I guessed all quarters exits,then I had arg winning against my Croatia and France winning against Germany,I had Croatia winning 3rd vs Germany and Arg winning the cup vs France,so yeah,not bad at all,only had a couple of mistakes and had a bunch of them in the group stage points(had a couple of teams having 9 points,England,Brazil,France) but in general,best prediction I ever made,if only I had Morocco beating germany I would have guessed most of the knockouts,but lets be honest nobody would guess Morocco beating Germany(Spain),but the rest of it I'm very happy with,just pissed I didnt put any money on it😂
Wow very good
@@ivandzaja6251 Wow that was very good then.
I must have been one of the few people who backed Morocco over Belgium, it's one of my proudest predictions
“Most lethal World Cup ever” well said.
jealousy 🤭
@@tmp8567 ?
To be fair Alfie, I predicted Argentina to beat France, the problem is that I thought it would be in the round of 16
And I also said Europe would play South America in the final and I was right, but I said it would be Brazil vs Belgium, I seem to be rivalling the Irish Guy in my predictions 😂😂
Same
Just my finals were arg vs den😭
I somehow had Uruguay in the final don't worry
I swear if Belgium is ANYWHERE near the top 10 FIFA rankings after this World Cup I’m gonna be mad
@@bababababababa6124 I don't think FIFA would be that dumb
@@bababababababa6124 I think they're 4th not sure though
Funnily, my anticipation for who would play in the final was 100% on, which I expected wouldn't be the case. Almost everything else I expected WOULD be the case ... was rubbish. Loved every second of it! :D
I was looking forward to seeing this vid more than seeing the final
Alfie, you messed up on Cameroon. They did not get eliminated in their second group game. They got a draw against Serbia and only went out because Switzerland got a win against Serbia, if Serbia won by 1 goal or drew, they would have advanced.
Thank you for reminding me how awful we were 🇷🇸 and how much we hoped to get out of the group
Stay strong brother. We are coming for 2026 🇷🇸🇷🇸
@@sashaplays9465you mean 4th place group stage
Yeah, so about Germany: no actual German football fan would have believed they'd make it past the quarters max, many even believed in a Group Stage elimination right from the start. To me, it's still insane how highly rated that German team was from the point of view of some international watchers. The whole discourse in Germany about that world cup was not about football at all (just like in Russia), and it proved detrimental yet again. On that team, maybe three or four players wanted to be there at all and it showed.
What was the talk about in Germany?
@@pongomb Mostly about the looks. About how to adequately approach the coverage itself and represent "European values" and morals. While everyone in their right mind should def. condemn the WC going to Qatar and their human right violations in the progress, the way the German officials did it was nothing short of embarrassing. Symbolic gestures, PR stunts and all that jazz nobody could take seriously because it was so awkwardly try-hard. It backfired brutally and the team wasn't able to focus on football.
And nevermind that Germany ostracized Ozil for having a political opinion and denouncing a literal genocide, the germans can never talk about human rights
As a German, I knew Germany would somehow manage to choke it and fail to leave the group 😂
yeah, cause they came to Saudi to play politics not football.
Ahhh English guy underestimates Croatia, who would have thought.
Croatia were pretty poor in the euros last year so few would have expected them to have done well this world cup.
@@charliezz6746 lol pretty poor, lost 1-0 to england (who ended in semis), drew with czech (who ended up at quarter finals) and won 3-1 vs scotland. and played epic match vs Spain after that, who lost at semi finals to Italy who were champions...
@@jdalbion I mean compares to 2018 they were not as good I don't think many expected Croatia to do as well as they did in this world cup when seeing how they did at the euros.
@@charliezz6746 there were 18 new players compared to 2018. ofc they needed some time to fit.
but even there, they played no that bad.
and during wc qualifiers & nations league, you could see that team is shaping up and that depth is even better compared to 2018. For next WC Croatia will be even better, because we have 3-4 good young strikers who will strengthen team even more.
defense is very young, avg age now 22-23. Midfield is good as always, also plenty of top talents (sucic, majer etc.), only thing that is not that great is attack for now, but for next euro & wc, attack will be also very good.
Alfie do a video about all young player award winners at every world cup and how their careers turned out or how their careers are going (in the case of the last 3 tournaments)
To be fair to you, almost everyone was backing Qatar to do well as most were under the assumption they had bribed other teams in their group to play badly.
Looking back, that was a dumb prediction on everyone’s part 😂😂but even without bribing they should have done better anyway considering they’re Asian champions AND we’re playing on home soil
16:06 "I think there is potential for something crazy to happen in [Group F]."
Well, you weren't wrong about that one. 😅🤣
Alfie, the most lethal WC of all time is the 1978 tournament (Argentine junta) where people were being killed in the streets DURING GAMES
Honestly Alfie, as far as predictions go, that wasn't half bad.
I had Brazil meeting France in the final, with the game ending 2:2 in regulation. So I wasn't that far off.
Video idea: best 7 World Cup finals - as many claim this one was the best ever, which has a lot arguments for it, but maybe it is a bit too much recency bias?
Don't feel bad, Alfie - it never crossed my mind that Argentina could ACTUALLY win (as they're always "favourites" and always bottle it in the end) I genuinely thought it would be either France or England (the match outcome was 50/50 for me)
Obviously I never expected Morocco to do so well, Spain and Germany going out early didn't really surprised me, Belgium though - did. Also Croatia played well as I expected them to.
I didn't see them as favorites this time and I had no false hopes of them winning, but I was rooting for them all the way and glad they won!
Team of the tournament IMO:
Livakovic
Hakimi - T. Silva - Gvardiol - T. Hernandez
Griezmann - Amrabat - Modric
Messi - J. Alvarez - Mbappe
Silva 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Great video, you should keep using the filter you used before. Makes it easier to separate past and present Alfie.
As an Aussie really appreciate the sentiment towards our issue at home with football.
For those wanting to know what happened in Australia, here's a condensed version of events...
Around a week ago the governing body (APL) announced that for though had done a deal to hold the next 3 a leagues man's and women's grand finals in Sydney!
This upset majority of fans, players etc as all previous grand finals have the host has won the right by winning it through the finals process.
There was side spread condemnation of this from fans and players alike including Craig Goodwin (who some people many know from the world cup) who had quotes misrepresented to show support for the decision, come out on his social media saying he was against it.
They had a meeting of clubs bosses which agreed to go ahead with the deal, however I can't remember which club it was but a club boss came out saying the meeting was a farce and they were forced to go along with it or threaten to ruin the league as a whole due to needing the finances from said deal....
So from all this fans organised protests such as walking out at 20th minute or sitting in the stand the camera are on so it looks like no fans are in the stadium etc....
Comes to Saturday just gone and there have already been 2 or 3 games and we get to the Melbourne derby, Melbourne victory v Melbourne city (part of city football group) some victory active supporters bring flares into the stadium and around 20th minute throw them on the field one ends up in the Melbourne city goal box, city keeper picks it up and throws it. Some say he was aiming for a bin to put it out others day he wasn't aiming, my view he threw it without really looking and harder than he realised, flare goes into stand and again reports differ soem say people were already storming pitch others say once flare went into the crowd they stormed the pitch. Regardless there was a pitch invasion and the city keeper was assaulted with a bin to the face which left a cut and concussion, also the ref was assaulted with a punch to the face and a camera man.
I would argue the perpetrators were not really fans and there has been a number of comments etc saying that there was a small group agitating to do this kind of thing.
Investigations are under way I believe 3 men have handed themselves into police and have been.charged with numerous offences. Police have released imagines of numerous other people they are wanting to talk to.
So powers that be making stupid decisions based on money started a sh!t storm of angry fans and further events lead to said explosion
Probably should also point out both media and other people are trying to put the blame on the city keeper from his throwing the flare back which ended up in the crowd, my point of view definitely wrong to blame the keeper.
Also if you are interested you should look it up and find out your own information!
@@joehunt390 keeper did dumb thing by throwing it, should have not touched it or moved it to the sidelines more carefully.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Let me fix that for you....
Shouldn't have been flares on the field.....
You are welcome
@@joehunt390 they shouldn't have been there but they were, that's the fact and he made a bad situation worse with his careless act.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 true, in hindsight he should have handled it better, but it clearly wasn't intentionally done! You also have to remember the game was still going and the flares could have been a hindrance to him stopping a potential goal so of course he is going to get rid of it as quick as possible.
Imagine he does nothing and victory score dye to him being blinded from the flare smoke.....
Before you say wouldn't happen, I think Liverpool it was lost a game to maybe Sunderland from a goal where the shit ricocheted off a beach ball that had got on the pitch and it stood so stranger things have happened!
Going through past world cup, I realized many champions actually lost their first game.
Seems it serves like an early wake-up call to put your head down and focus, since such an upset as what happened in this tournament with Argentina and Saudi Arabia could have mentally killed them but seems it actually strengthened their resolve!
"many champions"? Only Spain had previously won the WC having lost their opening game, what are you talking about?
@@applehack97 lol you are right! For some reason I remembered the Italy 82 and England 66 ties as defeats. (Italy in fact didn't even win any of their grouo games that cup)
I guess such an abysmal performance by Italy made me think there was a defeat there. Should check the stats rather than trusting my memory next time ^%
@@mafiousbj Italy in particular has had a history of being a slow starter in the World Cup. In addition to 1982, they also lost their opening game in 1994 and finished in a 4 way tie in their group (all 4 teams finished with 4 points and 0 goal difference, Italy only advanced as a third place team thanks to one more goal scored than Norway), then they ended up recovering and reaching the final.
I don't think it was necessary to replay all the clips from the other video ^^, but I am of course happy to be featured :D. I had some proper predictions and some bad ones as most people I suppose, but that's the beauty of the game. This world cup was an absolute banger and I loved it, aside from the whole Qatar thing, of course.
"I told you prediction videos were rubbish. Well, your's certainly are" hahahaha class
That talksport screenshot got me 😅😂
Hahaha I love those call outs at the end! 😂😂👍👏🥳🥳
I almost choked on my cider when I heard my prediction.. I'd forgotten how bad it was!
@@Tris2000 🤣🤣
Please do a video on position changes that saved careers like Leão and Martinelli from center forward to left wing.
I got right:
Japan and Spain progressing the group stage and facing Croatia and Morocco respectively. I also got those results right.
I also predicted the match and result of Portugal vs. Morocco.
I also predicted Messi winning the thing (he stole it in my eyes).
What I couldn't predict was France reaching the final.
that's impressive
The easiest thing to predict was the only one you didn't get right 💀
6:08 LMAO that justification truly was something else, Alfie! 😅🤣
Predicting the winner is pretty good going!! So fair doo's don't be too hard on yourself I don't think many would have predicted Argentina!
Neuer missed some pretty easy saves. He hasn’t been at his best for a while. A shame as Ter Stegen has been brilliant recently, but Neuer’s rep and status at Bayern sees him start as #1 keeper. Maybe Ter Stegen would’ve kept one of Japan’s goals out.
Neuer isn't exactly too old by GK standards but there's a clear feeling his best days are behind him now.
Reminds me of 2018/19 when neuer was so out of it. Everyone was calling for ter stegen
Just for neuer to remember that he’s the best keeper in the world
Neuer was the worst gk in the WC, and he's been pretty mid since 2015
@@thebigquack6945
the best in the world is someone who appears in the big times, not just against freudcschagennntengeizt FC in the Bundesliga, neuer was the best for two seasons, Courtois has already proven to be way better than him
Those were my predictions:
Group A:
1. Netherlands
2. Ecuador
3. Senegal
4. Qatar
Group B:
1. England
2. Wales
3. Iran
4. USA
Group C:
1. Argentina
2. Poland
3. Mexico
4. Saudi Arabia
Group D:
1. Denmark (I went really bold there)
2. France
3. Australia
4. Tunisia
Group E:
1. Spain
2. Japan
3. Germany
4. Costa Rica
Group F:
1. Croatia
2. Belgium
3. Morocco
4. Canada
Group G:
1. Serbia
2. Switzerland
3. Brazil
4. Cameroon
Group H:
1. Portugal
2. Uruguay
3. Ghana
4. South Korea
R16’s:
Netherlands-Wales 3:1
Ecuador-England 1:2
Argentina-France 3:2
Poland-Denmark 1:1 (1:2 after Extra Time)
Spain-Belgium 3:1
Japan-Croatia 1:1 (4:5 after Penalties)
Serbia-Uruguay 0:0 (1:0 in ET)
Switzerland-Portugal 2:1
QF:
Netherlands-Argentina 2:0
England-Denmark 1:3
Spain-Serbia 5:2
Croatia-Switzerland 3:0
SF:
Netherlands-Spain 1:1 (7:6 after Penalties)
Denmark-Croatia 0:1
Match for Third Place:
Spain-Denmark 4:1
Final:
Netherlands-Croatia 2:2 (4:4 after ET; 9:7 after Penalties)
I like how you acknowledge that Denmark winning their group was a bold pick, then just casually had Brazil going out in the group stage with no comment haha.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think Brazil was going to win it all or anything, but you really buried the lead there :P
@@tommyl.dayandtherunaways820 Yeah, I was hoping nobody would notice lol 😅
Rlly thought the Netherlands would win lmao
I had Brazil, Argentina and France as the main contenders and the later 2 were in the final against each other so I was quite accurate
Didn't make any predictions myself as it's usually an exercise in self-humiliation but applause to everyone who did regardless of their success.
Dont feel bad about Australia. As an Aussie myself, I was surprised Pikachu face about Australia wining 2 games too. I didnt expect them to win any games at all.
They even gave a run to Argentina but their individual brilliance edged it
Alfie, can you possibly do a vid on the rise and fall of FBK Kaunas? Mad story and played some big European Clubs.
I remember them playing Rangers in a Europa League qualifier a few years back. I'd be interested to know what happened to them x
haha Great job Alfie,you called the winner and you were spot on.
14:49 - I’m an Aussie but I have no idea what you’re referring to when you mention you are ‘saddened by post World Cup events’
Am I living under a rock lol, what happened?
theres been lots of a-league protests have a look at them on youtube
Pitch invasion at Melbourne derby.
Yes u are living under a rock
@@jaseashton8074 lot more than a pitch invasion
Actually I wasn't that wrong with some prediction especially on the knockout stage:
-Since 2002 Brazil loses the Quaterfinals (Except 2014 for being hosts) with European teams. And these loses came by ego fight (2006) or because the team lacks of talent and/or leadership. Brazil doesn't have the sense of suffering and surviving, so when an European team came as main adversary they tend to be smaller and didn't react properly (Like Argentina did in this WC)
-England is just jinxed. When I saw Giroud's goal, I knew England was screwed.
Brazil's failure in this world cup was mentality.
Oh Alfie, we love you!
Your Croatia call in the group stage was your biggest howler.
This was truly such an entertaining cup. I understand it was a guilty pleasure but there were so many good matches the whole way through
Hahaha, thanks for reading my prediction out. No one should ever listen to me. I'm the one who stuck £20 on Hull to be promoted next summer. :D
You don't need to apologise to Aussies, none of us expected things to go that well either!
Who would've!? 😂😂
I'm Australian i predicted Australia to make the round of 16 and lose in the round of 16 before the world cup started
Australia don't even call it football!
@@charliezz6746 we call it soccer
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 Hate that its called football why did the Aussies decide to copy the Americans and call it soccer.
Like you said...what matters is that you pick the champion...Well Done Alfie
FWIW I also thought England would find a way to sneak past France...
In closing...GREATEST WC Final EVER! #NotDebatable
DAY 60: Hey Alfie, could you do a video on the life, career, controversies and tragedy of Justin Fashanu. It'd be your best video yet and it's a criminally underheard story. ❤️
This Aussie forgives you Alfie. We all wrote them off. We were glad to wrong is an understatement. But within 2 weeks of one great football moment for our country, we had the shitshow of the grand final decision and the events at my home town
What happened in Australia just after the WC?
@@anteveic327 They began by making a decision to lock in the Grand final in sydney for 3 years. the active supporter groups began walking out at the 20 minute mark as a protest, except in melbourne during the derby, a group of victory fans stormed the field and attacked Citys keeper Tom Glover with a steel Bucket. Since then Victory are only allowed members at the ground for their home games, and for 3 away matches no travelling fans
As an Aussie I also thought we were gonna go out 0-0-3, glad to be wrong tho
I'm aussie and i predicted Australia to make the round of 16 and that was before the world cup started
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 Get lost. Posting your lie everywhere.
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 nice, was surprised to see us qualify as well tbh
@@vampyresgraveyard3307 u say this every comment someone says they didn't expect Australia to get out of the group.....
1. Overwhelming consensus amongst football followers in Australia was this.
2. You can type whatever trash you want and repeat it however many times you want. No one is going to believe u, one can say anything on the internet 👏👏👏👏
@@joehunt390that makes you a drongo.
Moving onto Nostradamus are we eh😂
Why did you pick Ghana over Korea? Ended up being a good prediction but the rankings were so different I thought any standard analysis would have put group h as POR, URU, KOR, GHA in that order
Alfie, can you make a video re the goings on with the APL, A-Leagues and fans in Australia
I’d love to hear your input on the topic as it’s been absolutely massive in my day to day life currently
Dude has limited knowledge outside of England and Europe
You put Croatia in last place in the group and we finished with bronze 😂🤦♂️🥉🇭🇷
you picked the winner - I think that’s solid lol
Funny thing is my prediction for the final was accurate lol.
My final prediction before it started was a final between Brazil vs Portugal with Brazil winning it all 😭
I got 13 out of 16 teams getting out of the groups. Also had the England France side completely right with France getting beat in the final unfortunately I had brazil winning it with Spain & Argentina making the Semi finals.
tbh i was hoping for an argentina vs england final, but the one we got was cool too
Probably because England fans wanted to banish the Hand of God in 1986 and bring the football back home after 18 months ago it failed at Wembley, but they wasted a lot with penalty miss again.
@@ezraezra2928 ahaha it's not gonna be easy to beat La mano de d10s
@@cremapastelera00 Brazil and France are also looking for a good fortune in 2024.
I think Brazil will win the World Cup in 2026. European teams will have to wait until 2038.
Expectation: Brazil lost to Germany again but Reality is Croatia beat Brazil by penalty shootout because Germany eliminated from group stage for the 2nd time in a row
Reality is Brazil lost to Europeean team but not Germany because they got eliminated from the group stage back to back instead Croatia won by penalty shootout
alfie recorded his predictions in mexico, going off of the filter
I predicted a 2-2 then extra time then penalties. But before the match, not before the finals began. It was a drunken guess the night before.
Alfie dnt we think its worth looking into qatars asain cup win ??........cause based on the performances here i cannot see how they were able to beat anyone of any quality let alone japan !!! was the tournament fixed to make them look better than they are in the lead up to the world cup and to justify their fifa world ranking ??🤔🤔
I literally predicted that it's gonna be Arg - 2 - 2 - Fra on the normal time!
Same in the extra time and Win on 4-3 by France.
(Yea I was on France)
And at 75', I wrote on my left hand :
' I thank you Mbappe, for this wonderful goal that made Arg - 2 - 1 - Fra. Really didn't want to lose to 2-0' !!!!!!
Then at 80', Mbappe scored a penalty!
You could guess how my reaction was!
As a Dane, those optimistic predictions make me sad 😢
I think Serbia let down A LOT of people this WC, so we won't fault you too hard for that one, Alfie. 😄
What happened to Australia after World Cup?
Yeah
No point asking here.... dude has limited knowledge outside of England and a lessor extent europe
As an Aussie subscriber I think I might need some more Australian mentions in videos before I fully accept you’re apology brother
So what’s gonna happen to most of the stadiums now that the World Cup is over?
damn, you're a genius.
Messi was also the first player to get penalties in each of the games
Fixing It For Argentina
@@namesurname8812 idk if it was fixed but in numerous games all across the board (not just Argentina games but other) there was dodgy referee calls and in my opinion when a game is close a few calls given against you or for you can go a long way to helping you get a result
@@BourneIdentity45 hence the anger at inconsistency
@@redboyjan exactly though at the same time it was consistently “inconsistent” when it came to Argentina getting calls 😂
@@namesurname8812 what I will say however, was that it was strange how everyone wanted messi to win, and how it was “his destiny” to win almost like anything else but messi winning the tournament would have been a poor World Cup, whether that means there was stuff going on in the background idk, but it’s happened before like in Korea for example there was definitely some sort of match fixing there when Korea played as the host nation and got tons of calls for them while other teams would get cards left and right
I find it hilarious that you refuse to admit that you were wrong about Southgate too
LMAO!! Alfie, this was a horror show. Total car crash😂😂😂
Picking the goalkeeper of one of the teams you expect to go out in the semi final to win the golden ball really might be the strangest and one of the worst predictions I've seen on UA-cam 🤣🤣
Maybe that was based on theoretical penalty shootouts heroics... much like Alvarez. But on the whole yes, far-fetched prediction on the grounds of being goalkeeper and those rarely getting much love when compared to field players, strikers and playmakers in particular.
Ronaldo would quote "show me " 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Am i the only one who felt the world cup played out like scripted reality tv?
Same here and totally rigged and I am about to boycott myself from even watching the 2026's FIFA World Cup edition onwards,good friend Paul Short!!!🏋️♂️
Probably yes.
Good video Alfie
From day one of the World Cup I had Argentina and France in the finals... And the winner would be a toss-up..
NAILED IT!!!!
Messi had all that match fixing handing him pens left and right, and he still couldn’t win the golden boot 😂 😂
True
Have you seen the recent protests in Australia over finals hosting rights Alfie
Most likely wouldn't have
@@joehunt390 probably has as he mentioned post World Cup events and he more than likely meant that.
@@jldch26 mentioning something doesn't mean he has seen it and has fully understood it, a brief glance at a headline could be all he needs to mention it
Good try though
Ronaldinho is the GOAT, even though he is retired.
Group E and F screwed up 98% of all predictions. Stunning cups for Japan Morocco and Croatia 🤣
I predicted that Messi and Argentina would receive extremely favourable treatment and decisions all the way to the final......
what ?? this same argument again when all the penalties have been proven time and time again to be valid, why are you crying ?? you're either french or a delusional ronaldo fan
Almost all predictions of World Cup have gone wrong:
1.Germany, Belgium, and Uruguay reached the knockout stages.
2.Brazil, England, and Portugal reached the semifinals.
3.France continued the champions curse.
4.Denmark, Serbia, and Senegal became major dark horses.
5.Brazil and England meet in the Final after their continental championship's final defeat at home soil, with Brazil winning sixth title.
I also chose argentina spain final. Argentina winning but my group predictions were much better than yours😉
Day 367: Indonesia XI If All Eligible Players Had Declared For Them.
Keep dreaming bocah
How about how many people killed in club football match in Indonesia? now that's an interesting video to make
English always underestimate Croatia, especially after Croatia knocked out England in 2018. Still salty I guess
Took a break from underestimating them at Euro 2020 I guess.
Aha, we are so salty a lot of us forgot you even did that 😂
Best German players in the premier league of all time. (Day 431)
I will not give up until the video is made or Alfie himself tells me to stop. Everyone else telling me that will be ignored.
If you don't believe my number, just go back to the previous videos. I'm at the bottom most of the time, but I'm there.
why tho
Ain't no one going to look for your comment in every single post lmao
Not even this cabbage patch kid alfie will
This was the best world cup since 2006
No, 2006 was the worst one. Too many yellow and red cards, especially the Portugal vs Netherlands game with 16 yellows and 4 reds and the Croatia vs Australia where referee mistook the third yellow at the end of the game.
The 2014 was the best World Cup ever before Qatar, with big teams played better like Argentina, Germany, and Netherlands. But the World Cup was also overshadowed by Brazil's 1-7 disaster in the semifinal against Germany.
What conflict of interest between Messi and Saudi Arabia are you talking about?? Messi plays for PSG which is owned by the qatari, not Saudi
Messi is an ambassador for the Saudi Arabia Tourist Board. With a hefty contract of course.