Best and worst things about watching the World Cup

For me its the kick off times

oui...
am an early riser...
i do ma best to stay up
for this shiate of a show
n its pure dissapointment
innit

Jun 21, 2026 -- 7:46AM, jasstardust wrote:

oui...am an early riser...i do ma best to stay up for this shiate of a shown its pure dissapointment innit

R yoo Scottish ?

Worst for me is only 64 of the 104 games are on German state TV, the rest (incl. so far the Holland and Belgium games) flogged off to a dogsh1t streaming service.

Kick off times definitely the worst thing for me. Only seen a fraction of the games.

ko times and

the commentatators and pundits - most of them are dreadful

best -open football and plenty of goals

Emma's Blackboard. Incredible how technology is helping us understand the game.

These hydration breaks are great. Previously if you did the missus at half-time, you'd have to hang around for appearance's sake. Now you can make your excuses after three minutes and leave her to it.

Don't really care about stunning balconies or who has the best analysts/pundits.

Watching BBC matches in 4k/UHD is fantastic
Watching blurry ITV matches in compressed 720p is annoying.

Surely it is the football, itself, that is all that matters

Best: Scottish fans reminding us all that footy and people can be great


Worst: Half of it happens when I'm asleep

Best: Ronaldo the manchild having a mare after Messi starts with a hat-trick.

Worst: The different start times almost every day. This week it's 5pm, 6pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9pm, 8pm, 10pm.

Best ...plenty of great performances by the minnows   ...very high goal ratio ...highest sine 1962  ,almost 3 per game .  Stadiums are full to the brim on weekday afternoons ...80k stadia  ...not sure how kids get the time off school .

Hydration breaks offer good breaks to adjust your bets ...although hardly needed when its 18c as it has been in some matches.
Love the live ITV backdrop of Manhattan .
Punditry  i hardly ever watch .     Worst  ...easy ...the kick off times are a shambles  ...defies logic when you have teams like Sweden and Tunisia  who share the same time zone both  playing at 4 in the morning in their countries  ...make it make sense.  I feel they could have built a stadium in Newfounldand St Johns  to align more with  European times   and having a few select matches there .  Most games  seem to be in the USA

that Sweden game would have been played USA time at 8pm  ...why ?   that could have been fitted in earlier in the day without clashing

One of the other worst things is also the BBC's aggressive advertisement of the TV license during match broadcasts, do they really think anyone who doesn't have a TV license is going to buy one

^^^^ mes moaning again ^^^

A lot of poor teams. I was going to say they make Scotland look good but that would be going too far.

worst thing is the timezone

Best...struggling tbh

Worst, Hydaration breaks clearly kills the rhythm of the game, also one of the things the last WC got right was adding on all the time at the end of the game, remember the numerous 10 minute+ being added on, this time only a fraction of time is being added on and although some refs are geeing up the keepers on goal kicks there is still plenty of occasions where free kicks, throw ins are taking far too long to be taken.

Arteta & Reyes had already introduced time outs.

FIFA just formalised them for the benefit of the TV companies.

Bad: very late match times, two commentators (main commentator and a co-commentator) now seems to be the norm (does nothing for me)
Good: excellent pitches, good TV coverage, great overhead shots; no-hopers putting it up to the big teams

Worst
48 Teams , 32 was ideal .
Again 48 means the 8 best 3rd place teams qualifying , which gives teams in later groups a big advantage in either knowing what they need to do or if they have already qualified .
Hydration breaks , i know its the same for all teams , but they seem to just have a quick swig and then have a team meeting for 3 minutes , when there are injuries breaks in play players still get another drink anyway .

I like the fans celebrating in front of the cameras to offside goals that were disallowed 2 mins ago. Clearly a big proportion of the crowd doesn't understand the rules. There is also the excited cheerful  waves to camera from fans briefly shown on the TV whose team are 4-0 down and should therefore be thoroughly miserable. Everyone seems to be having a good time, regardless of the score. No one is shouting for the manager/owners to be sacked or for Richarlison/Kolo Muani to be immediately taken to the knackers yard, its all very different from WHL

Must be a bizarre feeling for Tottenham fans to be supporting such a high quality football team in White shirts

Best: Messi off target penalty miss.
Wurst: Sausage eaters stealing a win deep into added time.

Best: Amazing stadiums and crowds.

Worst: Players behaving like 10 year olds in the school playground, especially collapsing in a heap

and rolling around in pretend agony after a foul.

2nd worst: the second (always an ex footballer) commentators. They can't wait for an opportunity to

talk about themselves.

The refereeing has generally been good, VAR use/delays seem to be fairly minimal and refs aren't giving fouls for minimal contact. The Argies seem to get away with a lot tho.