Football / Soccer / Calcio / Futebol / Fußball

You can boil down pretty much every tournament if you have an agenda. Mbappe and Haaland literally play in oil state clubs that can buy any megastar player they want, Mbappé never won a CL and Haaland ghosted in pretty much every finals and semis but was still able to get by because the Man City management has infinite money for players.

While true re the 7 games…the lauded CL knockouts are the exact same (7 games). For so many years we’ve heard talk about how CL knockouts are what matters and where the best play (a point I only half agree with - there are often some very average teams in the latter stages of the CL).

In reality there are only ever about a dozen or so big club games a season (top of table league clashes, CL knockouts and top seeded CL group games). And in WC/Euro/Copa years there’s another 6-7 games…ie an 50% extra important games (and for many these games, in particular WC games, are far more important than all but the very latter stages of the CL).

You’re making it seem like it’s just 7 meaningless friendlies. The World Cup is the most iconic and prestigious tournament across all sport. Matches there are obviously going to be prioritised.

some players will never have a chance because of where they are born.

I don't think that's true anymore if a country like Morocco made it to the semi finals.

If you are born in Uzbekistan your chances to become a football professional are also less likely than being born in France. So what's the deal, that's life. If you are unlucky that your country are no World Cup title contenders than your chances are just small every 4 years - you can still win it 3 times in-between.