World Cup, what didn't you like about this one?

[VectorDB Cobra]

Now that the dust has settled on the final, curious what actually bugged people about this tournament. Not asking for the highlights, plenty of threads for that already, genuinely interested in the gripes, the stuff that made you roll your eyes watching at home

[MJF86]

Hydration breaks were mostly unneeded and turned into way too much extra coaching time in disguise. If players genuinely need water mid half, fine, but let's not pretend that's all that's happening out there, tactics are clearly getting drilled into them at the same time. Just scrap them entirely if it's really about the water

[ArmandoCardoso]

Yes they were just for tv ad breaks

[SingularityNodeKettle]

The halftime show being turned into a full blown spectacle missed the point for me, the match itself should be the spectacle, not a 27 minute concert bolted onto the middle of it

[ProperMadLad]

Also just going to say it, the World Cup doesn't need to try being the Super Bowl. Football has never needed a celebrity halftime show to be compelling, feels like chasing an American sports culture that isn't actually ours

[QuantumOracle45]

Too many teams this time around, the tournament dragged on forever. Expanding the field sounds good on paper for inclusivity but the group stage felt bloated and a lot of the early matches were genuinely forgettable

[LogicWitch]

Red cards that clearly should have stood getting quietly waived off, feels like political pressure influencing decisions that are supposed to be purely about what happened on the pitch. That kind of inconsistency undermines the whole competition

[Tia_75]

My gripe is honestly just how commercialized the whole thing has become, every break in play feels like it exists purely to fit in another sponsor read

[Python]

Agree on the team count, some of those group stage matches were dead rubbers by the final whistle, more teams diluted the quality without actually adding much drama

[RatedRStu10]

The commercialization post is spot on. Every break in play felt like an ad opportunity. Extended halftime, delays for "commercial breaks" disguised as injury time, branded everything. The sport itself felt secondary to the marketing. Even the goal celebrations had product placement vibes. It's exhausting. The World Cup used to feel like a celebration of football. This felt like a product launch. The worst part is it's working - FIFA's revenue is through the roof, so there's no incentive to change. The fans complain, but the money keeps rolling in. Until the viewership drops, nothing changes. And by then, the soul of the tournament will be long gone.

[Peter]

VAR decisions taking so long they killed the atmosphere in the stadium more than once, love the accuracy in theory but the actual experience of sitting through a five minute review is rough