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Germany's top goal scorer Deniz Undav in World Cup Soccer 2026- started work at 4.00 am job at a laser machine factory then training for soccer later joins English team Albion, then the Stuttgart team. He was considered to be small and scrawny as a young boy playing in preparatory soccer team at Werder Bremen, leading to his taking this unconventional route to the top in world soccer. He scored 9 goals in 12 games surpassing Haaland, Messi, and Mbappe, in the time he took to get a goal in this World Cup- 50 minutes.

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Norway vs England buildup for soccer World Cup quarter finals in The Guardian.

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Erling Haaland Norway soccer striker who plays the British soccer team today. He is famous on the Viking Row practiced by the Norwegian team and being the one who scored the goals to put Brazil out of the World Cup in the US. Haaland plays for Manchester City in the Premier League and is a top goal scorer. In this World Cup he has become increasingly popular because of his unassuming style, simplicity and plain spoken habits.

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Ecuador wins by 2-1 vs Germany World Cup Soccer 2026 in an upset win.

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Kylian Mbappe adds 2 goals for France in 3-0 game with Iraq, World Cup Soccer 2026.

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Balogun gets a red card after scoring the first US goal. He will the round of 16 game with Belgium in World Cup soccer 2026.

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  US's womens socceer's Carli Lloyd, who led the US women's soccer team many times in her career, was honest and blunt on FOX television coverage of the 4-1 loss to Belgium in World Cup Soccer 2026. The host country failed to make it into the quarter finals after so much advertising on television, way too much not even good for the players. There is so much money on television ads and promotions that it must hurt the players and the game. Messi, Neymar, Vinicius Jr., Pulisic, and some Mexican players, were all put up as players who could do anything on television. In the end none of them did well, Messi almost in tears after Argentina was behind 2-0 for most of the 90 minutes against Egypt, only miraculously surviving. Brazil is out going down to Paraguay. Christiano Ronaldo, the first billionaire in soccer, was a little kid from a struggling family in Madeira, Portugal, and he too went out after failing to score on several passes, with Portugal's loss to Spain. All this may be a good thing and a learning lesson for the sport. For all those who love the sport and think things have gone overboard with television advertising,  with excessive brand sponsorship on television, making entertainment stars who knows to what purpose, but losing the best of the game of soccer in the process. And these are Carli Lloyd's comments (Carli who after 318 appearances and bringing so much joy to young girls for the sport worldwide has a net worth of $2 million compared to the now billionaires and others on the way to billions, or hundreds of millions, television stars of the sport who could not get their game right in World Cup Soccer 2026.) There are lessons for the sport which is the most popular sport not only in all the developed countries but also the poorest large countries on the planet like China, India, Brazil, Egypt. “I felt like they lost the game before they even stepped out on the pitch." “And I’m not sure why, and I don’t know the reasons. But just from the beginning: chasing. Tentative. Scared. Just not confident on the ball.”  "You wanted some of those big-time players to step up in big-time moments." “And I gotta be honest: I was a bit disappointed in Christian Pulisic. Whether he wants to be the star of this team or not, we didn’t see enough from him in this particular game — and, really, the whole World Cup. Little glimpses here and there.” ...

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The NYT looks at the FIFA rankings of top 10 in the World Cup Soccer 2026 and how they fared- France, Brazil, Argentina did well. 

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Malik Tillman scores for US 2-0 win over Bosnia World Cup Soccer 2026. The 22 year old plays for Bayer Leverkusen. He is the son of a German mother and a American father, chose to play for the US for the 2022 World Cup. Tillman says he has played better, this is not his best. "Pretty low, to be honest.” “I wasn’t satisfied in halftime, especially because of my set pieces. But a World Cup knockout stage game, scoring a goal, it’s of course amazing.” This is the first time in 24 years that the US has entered the round of 16 in World Cup soccer and the goal moments were celebrated by watch parties across American cities east to west and by a vast audience on television in the US and the rest of the world.

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With the game tied at 1-1 and also in overtime, Paraguay win over Germany in penalty kicks shootout, one of the biggest upsets at World Cup Soccer 2026.

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It was not always so that Jude Bellingham would even play for Englans. Tuchel England's coach left Bellingham out of the England squad in earlier selections when Jude was not in top form. During the World Cup he has played with such passion and form that he and Harry Kane, with Rice, Stones and Saka have carried England right into the semi finals and with some luck into the World Cup Soccer Final. Teams from Germany, Brazil have fallen, Italy failed to qualify, Argentina barely made it to the semifinals with Messi in tears in the final moments of the game. In this kind of game Bellingham and Kane are still standing.

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Folarin Balogun of the US Soccer Team in the World Cup Soccer 2026- born in Brooklyn of Nigerian parents settled in London chooses the US team. He scored 2 goals in the opener against Paraguay. Balogun fills a gap in the US team which managed just 3 goals in 4 World Cup matches in 2022. The lack of good strikers was a weakness in the US team. Balogun says he has the kind of US fan support  that he feel he has to return with his game. “There were so many fans motivating me and telling me how much they wanted me to represent the US." He says of Pulisic and his teammates taking him out to dinner.  “CP, a lot of the boys were there. … It was cool and they made me feel welcome." Balogun has two roles he plays both as a striker wiht his speed and positional awareness. And a defender in turnovers he acts as the first line of defense to win the ball back. 

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Norway 2-1 against Brazil World Cup Soccer to enter round of 16 with 2 Haaland goals. Brazil failed to impress as Norway had most of the ball possession. Norway's goalkeeper Hyland made 4 brilliant saves to make it difficult for Brazil to score. Brazil's one goal came in the 98th minute when a Norwegian player was given a yellow card for elbowing a Brazilian player and Neymar made a penalty kick. Without that Brazil would have lost 2-0 after Haaland scored twice. Brazilian player Vinicius Jr. was hailed in the media but could do little, and Carlo Ancelotti as coach could not come up with any ideas to change the game. The entire World Cup in 2026 is different because of the way smaller nations have played. Nations such as Cabo Verde have held firm, Germany was defeated by Paraguay, Italy did not even make it to the round of 32 losing to Bosnia. The loss of Brazil leaves only France with Mbappe, Argentina with Messi, and England with Kane standing. US faces Belgium on Monday July 6, 2026. Argentina barely stayed on when Messi scored in overtime against Cabo Verde, nearly losing. Only the French team has played consistently. Spain meets Portugal on Monday. No one knows how it will turn out. ...

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US collapsed against Belgium. Brazil lost to Paraguay. Argentina trailed Egypt for most of the 90 minutes only to recover with 3 goals in the last 20 minutes and the winning goal in overtime. Messi almost in tears, moved by the near failure of Argentina till the last minutes of the game gave a miraculous reprieve. One by one the highly advertised on television in the US teams and stars, from US's Pulisic, Mexican soccer players, Messi, Brazil's Neymar and Vinicius Jr, are all in shock. Less advertised, less well known players are making their way, and this may be a good thing as the advertising has gone overboard. Companies were pouring money into these ads turning the  players into constant presence in ads and creating an atmosphere that is not healthy for soccer as a sport. One just hopes France's Mbappe with his humility and quiet demeanor doesn't get into one more noisy ad on television like the others. Is Christiano Ronaldo, the little kid from Madeira, Portugal, coming out of nowhere at that time, a billionaire? Is Messi also from remote town of Rosario, Santa Fe province, Argentina, a billionaire? This doesn't do much for the sport. Germany's best goal scorer in this World Cup only dreamed of not having to do two jobs, and having a steady career, after struggling for a long period. There is something in this World Cup that has brought previously unknown players from unknown places like Cabo Verde to the forefront on world television, including the Egyptian and Moroccan players, the players from other smaller countries. Even the English players in the Premier League playing for England look good by comparison. ...

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Migrants and Jihadist tendencies in Europe in the years 2016-2026 a period in which Europe put up with attacks on crowds across European cities. Laurent Raviot was the judge of the Paris Criminal Court for the Nice Attack by a Tunisian migrant on July 14 2016 ramming a truck into crowds in Nice killing 86 people, injuring 458 people gathered on the English Promenade on Bastille Day celebrations. On the 10th anniversary of that attack and after many such attacks across Europe Le Monde interviews Judge Raviot, who describes his own emotions while judging this case. A minute silence for the people killed to honor those who died that day was held before the Spain France soccer World Cup game today. Judge Raviot says he hasn't completely recovered from judging such a huge case, he says- "I want to go to the Promenade des Anglais, to see it in the sunshine, filled with joy, telling myself that it's over, that we've moved on and that life is regaining its colors, its light." This is something that the whole of France, the whole of Europe, needs to recover from, this mindless exercise in letting in so many migrants and others who radicalized from remote parts of the world. ...

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The story of Al Thani Emir of Qatar and Qatar's impact on the Middle East using its LNG resources. He led the country from 1995 to 2013  when Qatar set up the state airline, a television network Al-Jazeera, and the US base Al-Udeid, gaining a presence in the Middle East through its LNG supplies.  North Dome is the huge gas field in Qatar. In contrast to Saudi policy and UAE policy Qatar supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab Spring movements. When these movements lost momentum Qatar continued its own foreign policy in competition with the Saudis and UAE.  Native Arab Qataris are only 330,000 out of a population of 3.1 million in Qatar, the rest mostly South Asians. There are 25,000 Britishers in Qatar. The South Asians are underpaid workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who built the soccer stadiums during the World Cup 2022. The discovery of oil and gas has changed the region and created a region with this kind of population mix with wide disparities in income and wealth. As late as 1998 the GDP was only $10 billion growing to $115 billion by 2008 and $208 billion in 2025. ...

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Something the US president says was "unusual" was the move to a defensive posture reverting to back five, in the substitutions, style of play, and DJT says putting Kane in defense in the second half. "You have a great player in England who I've played golf with. And he is Harry [Kane] who has been fantastic. I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player. What do I know about soccer? They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence." "We got to be a little offensive, right. But no, I'm not going to call it, what do I know about coaching? But that was a little unusual." Messi gets a lot of media attention because of media focus is on stars. In the actual results of the Premier League, Bundesliga, and La Liga, it is Harry Kane who stands out in Bundesliga performance during the last soccer season. He is arguably as good a player as Messi, and the Argentine team would have had a lot to handle with Kane and Bellingham, Saka, Rice and Stones all pushing up front. It may have broken up the Argentine attack with rapid counterattack and the result- England may still be in the finals with Spain. ...

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Harry Kane and coaches Tuchel and Scaloni Explaining England's defeat against Argentina with only 5 minutes left and England leading 1-0 World Cup Soccer July 15, 2026. All agree England just stepped back and defended after fighting hard the first 60 minutes of the game following the English goal by Gordon to make it 1-0. That led to wave after wave of unrelenting attacks from Argentina till the ball went through. Between the time Gordfon scored the goal in the 75th minute and the end of the game England possession was only 12%. It had never been more than 40% for most of the game. This caused a serious imbalance in the play. In the last 15 minutes of the game Tuchel pulled out Declan Rice and James, two of England's outstanding players, within minutes Argentina scored its 2 goals. This substitution appears to be an error that Tuchel himself says he accepts having made. Harvey Kane says- “Just gutted, gutted for the boys, gutted for everyone: the team, the staff, the fans.” “We played well for the vast majority of it. Once we went 1-0 up we just seemed to try to hold on which, at this level, is not enough. After the goal, whether it was them putting more men forward or us being able to match them man for man, it just was wave after wave and we were just trying to hold on, put the blocks in, but in the end it wasn’t enough.” England coach Thomas Tuchel says- “We decided to go to a back five because the gaps were far too open.”  “Argentina played with more risk, played with more rhythm and played with the feeling maybe that they had nothing to lose any more, which freed them up and pulled us back. Because we obviously played suddenly with a feeling that we had a lot to lose. Of course the responsibility is on the coach and if it doesn’t go well it’s easy to say it was wrong.” Substitutions can make a difference when the players are tired or to try something new in the last 4-5 minutes of a game. Players can make a difference going in in a minute or two. But coming in in a game with Argentina relentlessly attacking and the game having shifted Declan Rice and James who were already defending for this long had a better sense of this Argentine team's style of play for defending than two substitutes who had no time to get started. Lionel Scaloni, Argentine coach says-  “This team plays best when they are facing adversity.” “We had a challenging situation, there was blood in the water and we went for it. We had six or seven chances and the ball wouldn’t go in but the team fought until the end. After they scored, we really proved ourselves – it shows what football means to us and it goes beyond tactics.” ...

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The best player for women's soccer, Norway's Ada Hegerberg, with 3 goals in the first half hour of the Champions League final, is going to stay away from the 2019 World Cup. Playing for Olympique Lyonnais since 2014 she helped win the fourth consecutive French league title.

She says "woman's soccer does not have the respect it should have in Norway," and decided not to play for Norway in this years World Cup. She says there are inequalities in investment at the youth and club levels. She has averaged more than a goal every two games and fels there is not the energy in woman's soccer in Norway that is needed. She has twice been named Women's Footballer of the Year and won the Ballon d'Or award as the top player in soccer. Right now after changes at the Norwegian Federation with new head Klaveness, who also stopped playing for the team in protest, the best they can hope for is that people know she is from Norway.

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Cabo Verde, Haiti,  Bosnia and Curacao, all qualify for World Cup Soccer 2026 but what about Italy, China and India?  WSJ looks at China and its efforts under president Xi over the last decade to play in the World Cup, to host the World Cup and win the World Cup. This report says Italy's Serie A soccer inspired soccer in China. What happened? In comparison to S. Korea and Japan which sent players to Europe, China kept most of its players at home in China, and had more success with its women's team that reached the finals of the World Cup Women's soccer. The difference with South Korea and Japan is that Korea and Japan invested heavily in youth development as a pipeline for new players which is lacking in China and in India. Corruption has also affected the management of the soccer leagues in China. 

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When countries bid for the soccer World Cup they promised something different says ESPN- prices six times what they were in the last World Cup were nowhere  in the picture. So what happened and why, what is it doing to a national and cultural event all over America, and what is it doing to the the millions of young people and children who would have loved to go to a game once in their childhood. Is it robbing them of something of value, of the essential experience of growing up? DJT says "I would'nt attend it either" so do millions of die hard soccer fans and children all over the US -it risks making soccer "less representative of the communities that give it value" says Dr Feldman of the University of Virginia School of Business. Feldman has studied dynamic pricing and says this is just the wrong way to price tickets for a popular people's sport to have resale markets for the same ticket. ESPN explains all this in simple terms. It shows a graph with a $60 ticket on face value and what it costs in a resale market on June 1 in multiple locations from Miami to Los Angeles.  In previous World Cups there was no resale market so that ticket would cost $60. Now it costs on June 1 as follows- $447 in LA to $960 in Miami, $678 in Dallas, $455 in Philadelphia, $702 in New York, $468 in Boston and $400 in Seattle. Here is another issue that requires DJT to do some jawboning. The AG's of NY and NJ have filed subpoenas for FIFA to show transparency, which is too little, too late, to millions of young people and children who will have cost of living price them out of one of the precious experiences of childhood of watching their favorite players live, just once while growing up. ...

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England team's Jude Bellingham in opening game with Croatia in World Cup Soccer 2026.