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Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 260. (Read 63099 times)

legendary
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It will be a great new experience and it will be very interesting to watch a World Cup with 48 teams. You may not agree, but it will be a different and curious experience, to say the least.

About the South American teams, I can tell you that there will be no disappointment as you are imagining.
Of the 10 teams that compete in the qualifiers, I can say that perhaps only Bolivia and Venezuela are far below normal and would have difficulties competing in a world cup.

The top tier teams are the 3 obvious ones: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

The national teams of Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia and Peru are teams that play the world cup regularly (not like the top 3), but all these countries have good players that play in the European leagues and a good team.
So if the 7 Conmebol teams qualify for the 2026 World Cup, you can be sure that they will be competitive teams and with good conditions to play at the same level of the second tier of European tems for example.

I believe that for 2026 those who will miss out will be Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay.
That's the whole point of this tournament, they may not be teams that will win the title, but neither did Morocco during this cup, they lost but did they leave a mark? They did and that's the only thing that matters. If you add in more teams, and a team like Peru suddenly plays in the quarter finals, isn't that a good thing? Or a Chile semi-finals? I am not saying that will happen, of course 90%+ chance that will not happen but the possibility of that is the main reason why we will have more teams.

To be fairly honest, I am down with even more teams, have 64 teams, have 16 groups with 4 teams, make them all play 6 games, twice each other, and then make them play a 32 team round facing each other, once again twice, then 16, then quarter finals, then semi, all twice, and finals would be one game. That would be so many games I don't even know how many, but that would be amazing to watch, could go on for months (could be done all year throughout).
legendary
Activity: 2366
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For example, in South America there are 10 teams in the qualifiers. Currently there are 4 direct spots and one that goes to playoffs against Asia.

In the new version, there will be 6.5 slots. That means that in theory there might be up to 7 of those 10 teams in the world cup. So, basically almost the same as the qualifiers.

It will be a great new experience and it will be very interesting to watch a World Cup with 48 teams. You may not agree, but it will be a different and curious experience, to say the least.

About the South American teams, I can tell you that there will be no disappointment as you are imagining.
Of the 10 teams that compete in the qualifiers, I can say that perhaps only Bolivia and Venezuela are far below normal and would have difficulties competing in a world cup.

The top tier teams are the 3 obvious ones: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

The national teams of Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia and Peru are teams that play the world cup regularly (not like the top 3), but all these countries have good players that play in the European leagues and a good team.
So if the 7 Conmebol teams qualify for the 2026 World Cup, you can be sure that they will be competitive teams and with good conditions to play at the same level of the second tier of European tems for example.

I believe that for 2026 those who will miss out will be Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay.
legendary
Activity: 2478
Merit: 1492
What about so called "groups of death" ? When you are someone as Canada, but in a team with Germany, Brazil and Argentina. Also a saying from the past? What do you mean under "gap has vanished" ? If it has vanished we would see games with only 1 ball difference in score, but we have games that has ended with 3 or 4 ball advantages in Qatar World Cup. If the gap really has vanished, we would see completely mixed football club teams. But we dont see lots of Canadians, Americans, Poland, Morocco, Iran and etc players in other than national teams. I might write complicated, but I am trying to say that we dont see in Real Madrid, Bayern Munchen or MU players from Canada for example, if you say that all teams are even.

If Canadian players are absent from UEFA teams, that doesn't necessarily mean that Canada is a weak team. The local league (Canadian Football League) is quite popular in Canada and a lot of the local players prefer to play in that league instead of moving to Europe. The case with Morocco is different. The local league (Botola Pro) is not very competitive and the salaries and benefits are not that attractive, and therefore most of the national players end up playing for the European clubs (although Wydad AC featured in the club world cup recently).

No doubt that Canadian football league is popular in Canada. But as you say there is no big gap between teams, then why other players prefer not to participate in Canadian league? They would better earn the same but participate in league B somewhere, than go there?

Ok, maybe you are right and there are no weak teams in World Cup, but can you tell me then why we have a backbone of almost same teams participating in every cup every years? Why we have only 32 teams in tournament, instead of 64 or even 206 that tried to qualify?
legendary
Activity: 3346
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
What about so called "groups of death" ? When you are someone as Canada, but in a team with Germany, Brazil and Argentina. Also a saying from the past? What do you mean under "gap has vanished" ? If it has vanished we would see games with only 1 ball difference in score, but we have games that has ended with 3 or 4 ball advantages in Qatar World Cup. If the gap really has vanished, we would see completely mixed football club teams. But we dont see lots of Canadians, Americans, Poland, Morocco, Iran and etc players in other than national teams. I might write complicated, but I am trying to say that we dont see in Real Madrid, Bayern Munchen or MU players from Canada for example, if you say that all teams are even.

If Canadian players are absent from UEFA teams, that doesn't necessarily mean that Canada is a weak team. The local league (Canadian Football League) is quite popular in Canada and a lot of the local players prefer to play in that league instead of moving to Europe. The case with Morocco is different. The local league (Botola Pro) is not very competitive and the salaries and benefits are not that attractive, and therefore most of the national players end up playing for the European clubs (although Wydad AC featured in the club world cup recently).
legendary
Activity: 2478
Merit: 1492
Again and again the same argument.. LOL.. do you guys never get tired. There are no "strong" and "weak" teams nowadays. Two or three decades ago, there used to be a huge gap between teams from UEFA/CONMEBOL and those from AFC/CAF. But that gap has vanished now. As we have seen, Morocco defeated some of the strongest teams from UEFA to reach the semi-finals during Qatar 2022. The so called "weak"-"strong" argument is just an excuse to allow backdoor entry for the stagnant teams from Europe such as Danmark and Belgium, who don't deserve a place in the tournament.

What about so called "groups of death" ? When you are someone as Canada, but in a team with Germany, Brazil and Argentina. Also a saying from the past? What do you mean under "gap has vanished" ? If it has vanished we would see games with only 1 ball difference in score, but we have games that has ended with 3 or 4 ball advantages in Qatar World Cup. If the gap really has vanished, we would see completely mixed football club teams. But we dont see lots of Canadians, Americans, Poland, Morocco, Iran and etc players in other than national teams. I might write complicated, but I am trying to say that we dont see in Real Madrid, Bayern Munchen or MU players from Canada for example, if you say that all teams are even.
hero member
Activity: 1778
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I totally agree with the first reason you said about increasing the number of teams in the world cup because letting more weak teams participate in the world cup will surely decrease the quality of the world cup and we will see more games where the weak team playing against a strong team with full defensive playing style from the beginning of the match with can make the world cup matches boring for the fans.

Again and again the same argument.. LOL.. do you guys never get tired. There are no "strong" and "weak" teams nowadays. Two or three decades ago, there used to be a huge gap between teams from UEFA/CONMEBOL and those from AFC/CAF. But that gap has vanished now. As we have seen, Morocco defeated some of the strongest teams from UEFA to reach the semi-finals during Qatar 2022. The so called "weak"-"strong" argument is just an excuse to allow backdoor entry for the stagnant teams from Europe such as Danmark and Belgium, who don't deserve a place in the tournament.

If a team like Morocco can beat some teams from UEFA this is still not a reason to say Morocco is at the same level as the UEFA teams, first, there are many unpredictable things to happen at any time in football and sometimes a miracle happens you may not believe it but that's all because of the luck, also the reason of why usually an unknown team can defeat famous teams in UEFA is sometimes arrogant and narcissistic of the European teams so they won't show their real performance.
legendary
Activity: 3346
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I totally agree with the first reason you said about increasing the number of teams in the world cup because letting more weak teams participate in the world cup will surely decrease the quality of the world cup and we will see more games where the weak team playing against a strong team with full defensive playing style from the beginning of the match with can make the world cup matches boring for the fans.

Again and again the same argument.. LOL.. do you guys never get tired. There are no "strong" and "weak" teams nowadays. Two or three decades ago, there used to be a huge gap between teams from UEFA/CONMEBOL and those from AFC/CAF. But that gap has vanished now. As we have seen, Morocco defeated some of the strongest teams from UEFA to reach the semi-finals during Qatar 2022. The so called "weak"-"strong" argument is just an excuse to allow backdoor entry for the stagnant teams from Europe such as Danmark and Belgium, who don't deserve a place in the tournament.
hero member
Activity: 1008
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~snip~
We are talking about football so everything is possible, there is a chance for even good teams like Germany or England to lose the game against a weak team and if they let more nations enter the world cup there is a higher possibility to see this happening for many great teams when they fail to even pass the staging group but usually, the reason of they lose these game is the defensive playing style of the weak team lowering the speed of the game which can be a reason to lower the quality of the games in the world cup.

Absolutely. Just look at what happened in the previous world cup:

Italy, a previous champion, didn't manage to qualify.

The current champion, Argentina, lost against Saudi Arabia.

There are always surprises in the world cup, I'm just a bit worried that having so many teams will make the world cup a bit different, as the initial stages will almost look like the qualifiers.

For example, in South America there are 10 teams in the qualifiers. Currently there are 4 direct spots and one that goes to playoffs against Asia.

In the new version, there will be 6.5 slots. That means that in theory there might be up to 7 of those 10 teams in the world cup. So, basically almost the same as the qualifiers.
hero member
Activity: 1778
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.
I think the decision with the new format was to accommodate the aspirations of the many teams participating and that was the best option, because with more teams that will qualify for the knockout rounds it will increase the motivation of each team to prepare themselves so they can at least qualify for the knockout rounds, because teams that have often played in the World Cup will be counted as strong teams so that it can be relatively easy to qualify for the next round.
I agree, plus this will make sure that big teams do not get there and then suddenly suck, because we have seen plenty of "good" teams that ended up in the group stages and started to lose games, if there are more teams then either those good teams will have to play better, or the teams that they beat to get there will have another chance to go further.

Look at Germany, they managed to go to world cup and then suck big time there, was that fair to whoever they displaced when they got here? If that team whoever they are was there, maybe they would play better and go out of the group stages? That is why it is important to include more teams to keep everyone on their toes.

We are talking about football so everything is possible, there is a chance for even good teams like Germany or England to lose the game against a weak team and if they let more nations enter the world cup there is a higher possibility to see this happening for many great teams when they fail to even pass the staging group but usually, the reason of they lose these game is the defensive playing style of the weak team lowering the speed of the game which can be a reason to lower the quality of the games in the world cup.
legendary
Activity: 2366
Merit: 1408
the 2026 world cup in mexico,usa and canada will be held for the first time with 48 nations. 104 world cup matches will be played in 12 groups of 4 teams each.
this means that there will be 24 more than before. this was announced today by fifa in kigali.
the world cup will last 40 ( 39 ) days. the world cup in qatar only lasted 28 days. is this a good or bad change  Huh

You guys are faster than me hahaha
It is very good that FIFA is already defining the rules and format of the championship for all teams and confederations to prepare.

As far as I know, the 2026 World Cup will be held on the same date as previous World Cups, excluding Qatar, which would be from June to July.
The dates speculated are from June 8 to July 3, 2026.
Fifa should soon announce the official dates for clubs and confederations to prepare.

I said this a few days ago, and I was right about the format of 12 groups of 4, but I was wrong about the dates.
The final match will be disputed on July 19th, and the first match probably June 8th
Another difference from the Qatar Cup will be the preparation time, which will be longer.
Between the rest and the World Cup itself, there will be 56 days in all.

Another very important fact, with the increase of games, FIFA needs to adjust the total matches in each country.
Instead of 10 matches in Canada and Mexico, there could be a few more matches in each country.


hero member
Activity: 1778
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.


I personally don't like that decision for several reasons.
With the increase in the number of national teams, the quality of the competition will decrease.
We will see more boring and bad matches, which will reduce interest in the competition.
Given that most of the third-placed national teams will have a chance to qualify for the knockout phase of the competition, we will see a lot more calculations in the national team game and playing on the score, which will not contribute to the quality of the competition.
Obviously, for FIFA, profit have become much more important than the quality of the competition itself.

I totally agree with the first reason you said about increasing the number of teams in the world cup because letting more weak teams participate in the world cup will surely decrease the quality of the world cup and we will see more games where the weak team playing against a strong team with full defensive playing style from the beginning of the match with can make the world cup matches boring for the fans.
legendary
Activity: 2338
Merit: 1124
I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.
I think the decision with the new format was to accommodate the aspirations of the many teams participating and that was the best option, because with more teams that will qualify for the knockout rounds it will increase the motivation of each team to prepare themselves so they can at least qualify for the knockout rounds, because teams that have often played in the World Cup will be counted as strong teams so that it can be relatively easy to qualify for the next round.
I agree, plus this will make sure that big teams do not get there and then suddenly suck, because we have seen plenty of "good" teams that ended up in the group stages and started to lose games, if there are more teams then either those good teams will have to play better, or the teams that they beat to get there will have another chance to go further.

Look at Germany, they managed to go to world cup and then suck big time there, was that fair to whoever they displaced when they got here? If that team whoever they are was there, maybe they would play better and go out of the group stages? That is why it is important to include more teams to keep everyone on their toes.
legendary
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.
I think the decision with the new format was to accommodate the aspirations of the many teams participating and that was the best option, because with more teams that will qualify for the knockout rounds it will increase the motivation of each team to prepare themselves so they can at least qualify for the knockout rounds, because teams that have often played in the World Cup will be counted as strong teams so that it can be relatively easy to qualify for the next round.
legendary
Activity: 3374
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I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.


I personally don't like that decision for several reasons.
With the increase in the number of national teams, the quality of the competition will decrease.
We will see more boring and bad matches, which will reduce interest in the competition.
Given that most of the third-placed national teams will have a chance to qualify for the knockout phase of the competition, we will see a lot more calculations in the national team game and playing on the score, which will not contribute to the quality of the competition.
Obviously, for FIFA, profit have become much more important than the quality of the competition itself.
legendary
Activity: 2436
Merit: 1366
I think decision to make it 12 groups with 4 teams is good. If they increased number of teams in groups there would be huge lack of competition and many teams would drive matches to 0-0 or 1-1 intentionally. I think this design is better even because third places in groups can be very worthwhile now if you are successful team. 8 out of 12 means, technically, it's very high chance that you get to next round if you win only 1 little match. Wonderful.
legendary
Activity: 3346
Merit: 1352
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
The next World Cup is going to be very decisive for us, I have a lot of faith that we can go to the World Cup, especially Venezuela, the bad thing is that I see that the replacement generation of Venezuela is not in very good shape, they are quite complicated, on the other On the other hand, I see very well countries like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, which on the part of South America and on the other hand in the other continents are quite excited, in Asia they are quite excited, I heard that Japan has a very large project, which in about 15 At 20 years old they want to win the world championships in a row, I don't know what kind of study they have but it causes a lot of curiosity, besides the Japanese fútbol performance is very high.

In terms of skills and quality, I would rate Venezuela as a team that is much stronger than Japan. But Venezuela is unlucky to be included in the CONMEBOL grouping and therefore they almost never manages to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. On the other hand, Japan is included in a relatively weak confederation (AFC) and it is easier for them to quality. And in 2026, the chances of qualifying get even brighter for Japan, as the slots from AFC are increased by a significant amount. But this is one of the drawbacks of the qualification system. Strong teams from CONMEBOL and UEFA sometimes lose out, while weaker teams from CAF and AFC gets the entry.
legendary
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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
In the next World Cup I have high hopes of seeing some countries that have never been to the World Cup, it is also good taste that the quotas of the countries that will participate will be increased, this means that we will have much more time enjoying great football, that means that there will be more emotions, and if the World Cup lasts longer, it means that there will be more opportunity to know much more about the host countries, this refers to their customs, it will also generate more business and it will translate into great tourism for the countries , which will cause the economy of those countries to have large income and achieve more progress.

Yes.. this is what excites me the most. Next time we are going to witness the participation from a number of countries, who will be playing in the world cup for the first time ever. Some of the probable names are Iraq, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Finland, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Look at the map below, and you can find huge areas in Asia and Africa never getting represented in the FIFA World Cup. Finally the scenario is going to change:


The next World Cup is going to be very decisive for us, I have a lot of faith that we can go to the World Cup, especially Venezuela, the bad thing is that I see that the replacement generation of Venezuela is not in very good shape, they are quite complicated, on the other On the other hand, I see very well countries like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, which on the part of South America and on the other hand in the other continents are quite excited, in Asia they are quite excited, I heard that Japan has a very large project, which in about 15 At 20 years old they want to win the world championships in a row, I don't know what kind of study they have but it causes a lot of curiosity, besides the Japanese fútbol performance is very high.
legendary
Activity: 2996
Merit: 1132
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
the 2026 world cup in mexico,usa and canada will be held for the first time with 48 nations. 104 world cup matches will be played in 12 groups of 4 teams each.
this means that there will be 24 more than before. this was announced today by fifa in kigali.
the world cup will last 40 ( 39 ) days. the world cup in qatar only lasted 28 days. is this a good or bad change  Huh



source:https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/21707008/fifa-expanded-world-cup-gianni-infantino/    
Most people think that this is a bad change, but the reality is that I believe it is a good change. Because, world cup is a global tournament and having more teams equals to having more fun, and that means a lot more money involved and a lot more players would work hard towards showing themselves as well.

In every single world cup, we have seen players increasing their value, we just saw the most recent one and there were 100+ million spent on players that showed how great they were there as well. I think the valuation increase on players thanks to world cup is not to be considered something small, so the more players there are in world cup, the more fun we will have watching them try to prove themselves.
legendary
Activity: 3080
Merit: 1292
Hhampuz for Campaign management
Judging from the geographical and weather conditions, it seems that the South American zone is very supportive for national teams from Europe, many national teams seems not comfortable when Qatar as the host of FIFA World Cup 2022 because have hot weather and changed several league schedule for World Cup matches held on at the end year.

Still not official confirmed yet with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States will held on middle years after several European League competition ended or FIFA keep try begin like the same previous FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar, but most effective with FIFA World Cup start after all league ended around June until July not on December like in Qatar.

To be honest, I didn't hear any complaints from the participants who competed in the 2022 world cup in Qatar regarding the weather conditions. because, the organizers have designed it in such a way for the convenience of the players. plus, visitors. they've worked around this with state-of-the-art "giant air conditioning" cooling technology to keep the stadium cool. so, weather problems were not an obstacle at the 2022 world cup in Qatar. but regarding the World Cup schedule being changed, that's true. it aims, in order to overcome the extreme climate. As a result, the league schedule was disrupted. but yes, at least the 2022 world cup was successful and lively despite the many controversies surrounding it.

Of course, there wasn't any complaints from any participants or teams who competed in the recent World Cup which was held in Qatar because aside from they are getting world-class treatment and amenities, Qatar World Cup has been held in the winter season instead of summer season where regular games has been scheduled from June to July. Qatar and FIFA council has been working together to make the World Cup season-friendly so that the national teams will not be playing under the hot scorching sun in the summer.
legendary
Activity: 2534
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If you ask me I can say this is not a good change for the world cup to have more teams because there will be more weak teams in the world cup, however, the positive point of this decision is to have more nations and more people being part of the world cup so there will be more people in the world they are waiting to watch their national team games but still 48 team a lot and I don't know if just Europa will get more teams or other federation.
The quality of play will drop during the first two rounds but it should not be as bad as we imagine, after all on the world cup there are always a few strong teams that for some reason or another fail to make it to the tournament, so the increase on the number of teams not only will bring weaker teams to the cup but it will also bring those strong teams as well, and this will balance things out, even if it is undeniable that now weaker teams that on the previous format will never qualify to the world cup now will have the possibility of doing so with the current format.
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