- I hope the US has a really bad World Cup. Like not even getting out of the group stage. It's not the team's fault, but thanks to their president they are the pantomime villains and everyone hates them and wants them to lose.
- I don't think England are going to have a good World Cup. They won't get past the quarter finals. And their games are going to be painfully frustrating to watch.
- In fact, I think generally the quality of football is going to be very low during this World Cup. This is courtesy of searing temperatures and a bloated tournament full of too many countries who shouldn't really have qualified.
- Trump has and will ruin this World Cup in much the same way that he is ruining America's 250th birthday.
- This World Cup will be looked on as a disaster, and the US as a terrible host. The football will be overshadowed by all the off-the-field issues.
- Attendance will be poor at many of the early games, and I fear a Superbowl-like artificiality to the atmosphere of most of the later games.
- I don't have any predictions on who the actual winner will be. One of the usual suspects.
- It's going to be interesting to see whether the pitches hold up. Most of the stadiums normally have artificial turf, so they've had to replace this with specially engineered grass - which has the potential to be awful.
- Some of the new rules being implemented for this World Cup will be ridiculous, and I expect at least one major VAR controversy.
- The US "soccer" coverage is going to be interesting. I've already seen that the first US game will have a 3 hour pre-game show. Good grief. But at least the studio host is Rebecca Lowe, who has been the Premier League host here for ages and does a great job at that. And I notice that Zlatan is going to be one of the pundits - which should be entertaining at least, even if he doesn't exactly provide any interesting insights. I don't hold high hopes for the quality of commentating - but thankfully they are mostly British.
