Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 193. (Read 67847 times)

No Denmark isn't much worse than Bolivia or Venezuela. I actually think that it would be quite even if they played against each other. It seems that Venezuela never played at a World Cup. Check the Wikipedia but it says they withdrew sometimes and most of the time didn't qualify.

Europe has 55 starting teams and 16 direct qualification slots and no play-off slots. If you put that into perspective, it is still hard to qualify for European teams.

CONMEBOL has 6+1 slots for 10 starters!

World Cup never intended to be fair in reality. European countries are the best teams in the world and have the best players so they have more chances to qualify, yet sometimes top Nations like Italy might risk not playing there if they were not fit.
Asian, African, North Americans and Oceania teams performance are quite limited and their chances to succeed is limited.
South America, Conmebol, comes after UEFA and it is dominated by Brazil and Argentina most of the time. The other teams chances are quite the same.

@Stronkored this is indeed a surprising stat about Venezuela and to be honest I don’t expect FIFA to suddenly become considerate and try and accommodate them in the long term. Also when I search about this I see the results which shows that they’re a weak team and that’s why they failed to qualify so unless they can suddenly improve their performances I doubt that we will see them qualify in the future too.

You may be surprised by the fact that Venezuela has never even participated in a world cup, and is the only CONMEBOL member country that has never qualified to compete in a World Cup. Source
Maybe you are right that the reason they could not qualify for the qualification was that the rations given by FIFA were relatively small so the competition was very tight because there were already strong countries that had always been World Cup regulars such as Brazil and Argentina plus Uruguay and Colombia which were also quite strong. often passed the qualifying round, but in reality, Venezuela is not as strong as it seems, so if FIFA changes it is not a guarantee for Venezuela to also be able to qualify from the qualifying round and compete in this big tournament.

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

You are right but not completely because there if you go with your girlfriend in Muslim countries as an unmarried couple they can punish you and will even get you in trouble, there is even a chance to get jailed because of that.
But still even in these countries if you are rich enough you can go there with your girlfriend and none will even bother you.

I just noticed that there are 6.5 spots for South America right? Damn it I think I can't even understand how this qualification works. There will again be play-offs and it is inter-confederation, which means that South America could have 7 out of 10 teams to qualify for the final round. But I don't understand how these different coefficients should make sense when you divide qualification participants by the slots. Shouldn't that be as even as possible?

It's obvious that each continent is sending the best teams of their continent for that year and they are going to end up with a good result compared to teams that didn't went there, it's rarely about luck and mostly about talent. However, the latin american one is the hardest one considering there are so many great teams and very few spots for them, and they will certainly have hard time.

Same goes for African teams as well, we see players from those nations end up being decent enough, and national teams are where players can show their talents as well, but very few spots for them and any good player in a terrible team will not be able to show himself to the bigger european clubs because of it as well. It's a tough deal.

Yes, that simple but seeing the things as they seem now, it's like it will be too much to ask because they are really not that inclined to make their rules flexible enough to make the visitors enjoy their time in their country and be entertained. This must be changed and should be given a time by the FIFA council specially if Saudi Arabia is also looking forward to host a world cup soon. Nobody is arguing about Qatar's capabilities to host a world cup nor their religion, it's not what people wanted, it's just a big misunderstanding because when it comes to rules, people tend to involve religion and beliefs in it too.

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

The schedule for CONMEBOL qualifiers are out. This time South American teams will get a total of 6 slots, compared to 4.5 slots that they had in 2022 (4.5 was reduced to 4, after Peru lost to Australia during playoffs). The CONMEBOL qualification tournament will start next month (September 2023), and will run till September 2025. As usual, 10 teams in total will be taking part. On 7th September, there will be a total of 3 matches and defending champions Argentina will start their campaign against a strong Ecuador. For Brazil, the first match is going to be against Bolivia on 8th September.

Of course, you are right about that, I say it from the point of view that the people who enter a country have a certain kind of respect, that they are very respectful of the rules, something like the world in Qatar, the people who were They complained a lot about that country, too much, about their customs, their way of life, even their culture, but what I want to point out is that as everywhere, the rules must be followed, we cannot let in anyone who have a very strong criminal record or are a person who basically does not like anything but make a fuss, but we have seen that there are people who comply with everything to be the most normal in the world and end up being completely crazy, even entering in a suit.

But I understand in the sense that you say it, however I have seen that things, at least in the USA, are unfortunate due to the number of people who are trained and that makes things begin to change, that is, many go to work to earn Well, I understand that the hour to do a job , for example , washing dishes if they were paid at 25 usd per hour, now for so many migrants there are, they are offering them 10-12 usd per hour due to the massive amount that is coming in, so In fact, there are reports that I have seen that there are many who stay lying on the streets of New York Sleeping and Asking for money, something that seems Dangerous to me, however this is taking place long before the World Cup, at the rate we are going, in the World Cup for I don't know how much will have Changed in less than 1 year to move to the USA, this becomes a very big social problem if they are not able to Control it now, in fact those people, many of those who are there, have legal entry, that's the most important thing, so I don't know how that could be handled anymore.

I am in favor of the fact that for a country like the USA, those who must Enter with a VISA do so with a VISA, but there are many people from Europe who are not very well balanced and they enter without having to comply with these things, so that is where the great detail lies. However, I think that this should be fixed quickly because a problem like this can help tarnish an event as good as a soccer World Cup, although as it will be in a defined place, I imagine that in those places the special forces, police , they will be in charge of cleaning that type of thing and Removing people who do Not contribute Anything.

Yes.. this is exactly what happened. If you stay with your girlfriend, then it will be treated as adultery in Qatar and some of the other Arab nations. And the punishment for adultery is death by beheading. In reality, this law is rarely implemented and usually they doesn't prosecute unmarried couples. But in the past, there were instances of people getting jailed for pregnancies outside the wedlock. Westerners are mostly unaware of these Qatari rules, and a few of them fell victim to the strict laws during the world cup. It soured the overall experience of participating in the world cup.

That's a pretty strange way of checking marital status.

You could be staying with your sibling and you would be seen as married? 

Really weak enforcement anyway, because anyone can say yes, they are married. There's no official way of checking anything. They shouldn't be asking that anyway, but maybe it's not illegal there.

When you went to a hotel to stay with your girlfriend, they can check if you are married or not, it says so right on your passport that you have different names, and if you have the same name you were allowed to stay in the same room, if you didn't had the same last name then you were asked if you were married or not (because you can be married and still have different names) and if you weren't, you weren't allowed to stay in the hotel.

This may not be the issue for some of the very top hotels there, but it was an issue for lower level ones for sure. People need to realize that Qatar forced their own tradition and culture and it was literally by force, literally detained when you carried any lgbt flag anywhere, they had ZERO respect towards peoples beliefs and they hide it behind the mask of "respect my culture" when they did it. Worst world cup host in its history.

This is indeed true and many people fail to understand that hosting these events and much deeper implications than just the sport itself. The political agenda is massive. The construction companies hired to build stadiums and infrastructure are also partners who would never judge the government from Qatar for any political decisions. it is about creating financial dependencies that can be exploited in many ways and on many occasions. The truth is that these countries are extremely powerful financially and they know they can afford to do stuff that otherwise would be rejected as unacceptable.

The beer isn't really the biggest issue, but the whole drama surrounding the unmarried and LGBT people was a farce. Infantino's speech in which he said that he feels Qatari, he feels gay, he feels all kinds of feelings... I would really like to know how much Infantino was paid for the trash he talked and did.

You are wrong, we didn't ask and expect to see the Qatar government change the whole country's rules and traditions and drink beer in the streets all the time and make the team leave Islam, I just wanted to say they could do some temporary changes in some rules and make it easier for the visitors from other counties with other religions, or they could make some special rules during the world cup and make sections for the tourists.

How would random people know if a couple is married or not though?

And in which way were they discriminated?, did they not get to buy a ticket?, I haven't read this so no idea what actually happened.

The next edition of the FIFA World Cup (2026) will be played during June-July, when the temperatures will be mild. It won't be too cold, and it won't be too hot. That said, Northern cities such as Vancouver, Seattle and Toronto will be hosting some of the matches. Asian and African players may find it difficult to get adjusted to the climatic conditions in these cities. Also, as we move from group phase to the knockout phase, teams will be moving form one city to another. They need to quickly adapt to the conditions, as many of these cities are thousands of kilometers apart from each other.

FIFA World Cup 2022 schedule matches change and move more than several months with usually begin on June to July move to November to December, Qatar know as countries with hot temperature and FIFA have to change match schedule with not really hot weather or temperature. Its working when Qatar become FIFA World Cup 2022 host but get bad impact with many players have absent after injury, based on all league still have competition and some players less get time for getting rest.
Next World Cup 2026 seems difference because Latin America know with cold temperature and not necessary for changing matches schedule, for Asian and Africans player need to adapt with cold temperature because in their country has hot temperature.