# World Cup 2022 - discussion, predictions, and thoughts

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-cup-2022-discussion-predictions-and-thoughts/974476>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Tags:** football-soccer-fifa\
**Created:** [November 6, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-cup-2022-discussion-predictions-and-thoughts/974476 "2022-11-06T20:37:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 81

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**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2022, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-cup-2022-discussion-predictions-and-thoughts/974476/81 "2022-11-19T18:43:04Z")

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I was always a Lahm fan. As my posts when he was playing illustrate. For instance.

> [@Is Lionel Messi the greatest footballer of all time](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lionel-messi-the-greatest-footballer-of-all-time/724681/42):
>
> Of course there is an overlap, but the thing is with the biggest sides, they can get the best players from multiple countries (as mentioned, Bayern has Holland’s Robben and France’s Ribery on their side in addition to the Germans - Barcelona has Argentina’s Messi and Mascherano, Brazil’s Neymar, Uruguay’s Suarez in addition to their Spanish core). I’ll put my weight on Bayern or Barcelona over Germany. I haven’t seen any other evidence that will sway me otherwise. And I’ll say that Messi has d…

(Man I was wrong on Rakatic. 🫣)  
That does not change the fact that he wasn’t a big marketable name, like the others ones I mentioned.  
(A bit like Pep actually, in his playing days.)

The kind of players people want for publicity reasons is the big names and again he wasn’t one. And him deciding to skip it makes no difference to them.

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