{"id":748606,"date":"2026-06-20T10:03:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T10:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748606\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T10:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T10:03:26","slug":"mma-goat-choices-are-garbage-fans-brutally-troll-ufc-legend-khabib-nurmagomedov-for-his-fifa-world-cup-2026-winner-predictions-international-sports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748606\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMMA GOAT choices are garbage\u201d: Fans brutally troll UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov for his FIFA World Cup 2026 winner predictions | International Sports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u201cMMAKhabib Nurmagomedov (Getty Images) Khabib Nurmagomedov has shared his predictions for the FIFA World Cup<\/a> 2026. The former UFC lightweight champion, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time, remains a passionate football follower. As the World Cup continues, Nurmagomedov offered his thoughts on the teams most likely to lift the trophy. He also reflected on the players he expects to shine during the tournament.His comments quickly gained attention on social media. While many fans appreciated hearing his football opinions, others questioned his selections based on the performances seen so far in the competition. The discussion grew even bigger after his predictions were shared online, with supporters and critics offering different views on the likely World Cup winner and the race for the Golden Boot.<\/p>\n

Khabib Nurmagomedov FIFA World Cup predictions trigger debate among fans<\/p>\n

Speaking during a recent interview, Khabib Nurmagomedov identified Germany as the strongest contender to win the World Cup. Although he admitted he was not personally supporting the German side, he explained that he believes they currently have the best chance of becoming champions. He ranked the Netherlands as his second choice and Spain as his third favorite for the title.The Dagestani star also named several players he expects to compete for the tournament\u2019s top-scorer award. According to Nurmagomedov, stars such as Kylian Mbappe<\/a>, Lautaro Martinez, Vinicius Junior, Joao Felix, and Harry Kane<\/a> have the ability to finish among the leading goalscorers. He also revealed that his personal support is with Uzbekistan, praising the team\u2019s determination and hunger to succeed on football\u2019s biggest stage.After the interview clips appeared on social media, many fans responded with mixed reactions. A fan wrote, \u201chow does he know so much about football but his top 2 favourites are absolute garbage\u201d, one wrote, \u201che\u2019s still stuck in the 90s\u201d. A third one wrote, \u201cSorry. But the mma Goat doesn’t know much about football\u201d. One fan wrote, \u201cAnd he\u2019s wrong on all of none of them are leading scorers\u201d.This is not the first time Nurmagomedov has spoken about football. Last year, he also shared his opinion on the long-running debate between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. While acknowledging the achievements of both legends, he explained that Messi\u2019s success, particularly his World Cup triumph with Argentina, made it difficult to choose anyone else as the greatest player. Nurmagomedov said Messi\u2019s accomplishments speak for themselves and are impossible to overlook.Known for his love of football since childhood, Nurmagomedov continues to follow the sport closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khabib Nurmagomedov (Getty Images) Khabib Nurmagomedov has shared his predictions for the FIFA World Cup 2026. The former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,36456,16135,786,359709,29475,15058,69800,121458,785,85,787,21418,359708],"class_list":["post-748606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-fighting","tag-golden-boot-predictions-2026","tag-harry-kane","tag-khabib-nurmagomedov","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026-winner-predictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}