4000? That's crazy, I haven't heard about this anywhere. Corporate media and institutions financed by the Western right-wing have introduced this weirdo right-wing rhetoric in our countries, it didn't exist here before this. People naturally moved between these fake ass countries until the 90s and became citizens and literally no one cared. This was super normal especially in the Arab World, but now you have people talking about the fucking Lebanese identity and the Syrian identity, when these countries were one province of numerous empires for thousands of years. Tragic developments honestly, a family like the famous Al Atrash family could just move from Syria to Egypt and become Egyptians not that long ago, now people seethe because an Iraqi family moved to Qatar and their sons play for the Qatari football team.

Xenophobia is sadly horrible in Lebanon, it has even reached my family despite my dad marrying my Syrian mom. The shit that especially far-right maronites say about Syrians and Palestinians is just disgusting. Most of it is just imported from American right-wing culture war bullshit, you have Lebanese boomers talking about building a wall on the Syrian border to stop Syrians from coming.

A guy on Iraqi Telegram went viral for trying to start a boycott campaign against businesses that employ non-Iraqis. He calls himself a far right Iraqi who is angry about Syrian and Lebanese people taking jobs from Iraqis. Literally every medium-sized restaurant has non-Iraqis working there lol. He's also mad that the football national team has a half-Pakistani player, because the advanced Semitic Iraqi race should not procreate with the lesser races. Everyone dunked on him and called him a loser, happy that this brainrot hasn't penetrated Iraq yet. His Telegram page made it to 500 followers before getting trolled to closure. Btw, I'm making an Iraq trip with my wife and the kid in the spring, you'll get a full report in the news mega when it's time.

The quality of the academies and the stability of the domestic league also matters a lot. Saudi regularly makes the World Cup with only domestic players, while Qatar won two Asian Cups in a row with only domestic players. Chinese academies are simply not producing decent players, and their league has financial meltdowns almost every single season. Something in their academy system is simply not working, statistically they should be producing at least one good player that can cut it even in a lesser European league. Every single top 15 Asian nation has at least one good player that makes it out, China can't seem to reach that stage. The Chinese League isn't worse than the Iraqi League for example, but Iraq continues producing way better players even with the instability in the country.

China are so bad considering how good they're in individual sports and they're just good at doing successful long-term projects, but they just can't seem to figure out football for some reason. They're better than North Korea, but South Korea are many levels ahead. Right now I'd say that the big 5 (Japan, South Korea, Iran, Australia and Saudi) are all better, then Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, UAE and Uzbekistan are all comfortably better. They're barely top 15 tbh, even smaller nations like Bahrain and Kuwait are as good as China. Even rising nations such as the likes of Tajikistan and Indonesia are now on China's level.

I'm very excited for this, Asia hasn't sent any truly fresh team since North Korea in 2010. Uzbekistan especially deseve this, they've been so close in the last 20 years but they always fuck it up.

Look up the UAE now, it's ridiculous, half of their team is Brazilians and random players who have lived in the UAE a few years. Indonesia are also finding any guy in the Netherlands with an Indonesian grandma and giving them citizenship. Every good player is some Dutch guy named Jan with a slave owner grandpa, it's crazy.

Some World Cup qualifying news from the best continent, Asia. Japan continue their rampage as they beat China today, while Saudi Arabia continue their woeful form with a loss against Indonesia. Iraq beat Oman away, big result for Iraq. Iraq's chances for a first World Cup since 1986 look very good after Jordan's fumble vs Kuwait. Uzbekistan look set for their first World Cup appearence after beating Based Korea today, while Bad Korea drew against Palestine. My projection of qualified teams after this round is: Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Iraq, Japan, Australia. Saudi Arabia should make it through the playoffs, but they look like shit. UAE have picked some nice form recently, so I think they will be the last team to make it from Asia.

Israel killed Celine Haidar yesterday, a player of the Lebanese Women's National Team. FIFA member Israel is actively killing international players of other FIFA members

This site is sometimes so funny outside of our beautiful news mega, I literally understand nothing about what is happening outside of this cozy thread. It's always some drama about some extremely online thing that takes over the entire site and causes half of the users to quit.

Putin's words lost all meaning a long time ago. It's very obvious that the only type of escalation that Russia is currently committed to is within the borders of Ukraine, so even if they escalate now it won't go further than a bridge or a dam across the Dnieper. He's not willing to do anything that jeopardises progress on the Ukrainian front. Despite all the teasing and encroachment from the West, it's still neolibs that have the final word in Russia, and those neolibs live in a world where Russia sells gas and oil to the EU a day after a peace agreement is signed in Ukraine. Ukraine invaded old Russian territory using western weapons and western tanks, still nothing happened. What options does he even have to escalate? Sell missiles to the Houthis? No because Saudi Arabia are still his besties. Give Iran more weapons? Already happening. Strike a US asset in Europe? Will literally never happen.

The US and their dogs allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles doesn't change anything. Russia under Putin are committed to deescalation until the Ukraine war is wrapped up, and Ukraine's biggest issues are in Ukraine itself. Hitting an oil refinery in Rostov won't stop Russian advances in Donetsk. Those strikes might affect Russian supply lines a bit, but Russia has a lot of options with different paths to take to reach the front.