Asia is absolutely running the script at the 2026 #FIFAWorldCup!
6 matches played, ZERO losses. The Asian Football is officially putting the world on notice.
🇰🇷 South Korea 2-1 Czechia
🇦🇺 Australia 2-0 Turkey
🇯🇵 Japan 2-2 Netherlands
🇶🇦 Qatar 1-1 Switzerland
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay
🇮🇷 Iran 2-2 New Zealand
2 Wins. 4 Draws. Unbeaten.
And we still have Iraq 🇮🇶 plus debutants Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 and Jordan 🇯🇴 ready to take the pitch. Asian football hasn't just grown, it has arrived. #WorldCup #AFC #AsianFootball
The truth is that FIFA is desperate to get India to play in the World Cup, has been for a while as we are literally the largest sports market with just a single sport dominating, the last fairly unexplored major market in sport.
They gave us the FIFA U17 World Cup on which I worked for that reason. The women's U 17 as well, they also wanted to give us the U20 tournament if our team continued to do improve, but the AIFF had imploded by then.
FIFA, like every world sporting body other than the ICC, wants to bring our huge audiences to their sport. It is our collective sports administration incompetence coupled with a clunky structure of sports being in the state list instead of the central list that is shooting us in the foot.
And why most major Indian sporting achievements have been individual, despite the system instead of thanks to the system.
FIFA is organising a U-15 Football Festival in the USA in September 2026, with all 211 member associations invited to participate.
Hopefully India will be there. With AIFF’s leadership currently attending the FIFA World Cup 2026, this is the perfect opportunity to ensure all arrangements are put in place for the India U-15 team to take part. Opportunities like these are exactly what young players need. #IndianFootball @KhelNow
@VickyVelu7@7negiashish We should first get back to Asian Cup🥲
4-5 years back our realistic aim was to qualify for Asian Cup knockouts. We missed it out by a whisker in 2019.
Now, we haven't even qualified for the 2027 edition which is a 24 team tournament.
the same people who acted like Stalin is solely responsible for all the SA crimes in TN are now rejoicing in their favourite cute idol’s power who is walking around with bodyguards as a CM & him meeting all the cine celebrities when everyday there’s bunch of crimes that is terrorising the streets.
your fake concern & your hunger to make a man powerful is costing us all & will cost more. It’s not going to be just a collateral damage, but a kind of damage that is going to be a disaster. God or any supreme or any miracle, help us all 🙏
Football is genuinely the closest thing we have to a universal language. Expanding the World Cup to 48 teams was a top tier decision man. More countries, more cultures, more stories.