Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 265. (Read 67816 times)

Asserting football is solely a diversion? Think again! In Japan and South Korea, it's transcended into a lifestyle – nay, a doctrine. The "100 Year Vision" is a daring proclamation of the region's pursuit of distinction and its tenacity in the quest for greatness.

What, pray tell, embodies excellence in football? Championships, or perhaps something more profound? For Japan and South Korea, it's the profound adoration of the sport and the faith that, fortified by grit and perseverance, no goal is unattainable.

Undeniably, their perspective bears fruit. The incredible strides made by Asian football lately are nothing short of phenomenal. From formidable national teams gracing the world stage to exceptional players etching their names in premier clubs across the globe, Asia is a burgeoning juggernaut.

Asian football, always dominated by Japan. so naturally, if Japan participates in almost every World Cup championship, the progress of Japanese football is more prominent when compared to other Asian countries. then, followed by South Korea, Iran, Arab. in fact, there are many Japanese players who play at the European league level.
now, Qatar is one to be reckoned with in the Asian Cup even though there are actually many naturalized players. however, they were able to become finalists in the 2019 Asian Cup which toppled the Japanese squad. Currently, the development of football in Qatar is better than Iran and Arab. but now, Arab countries are trying to build their football to further develop.

At the 2026 world cup, FiFA increased the quota for Asian representatives to 8 countries. To be honest, I don't know if this is a good idea or not. but after I tried to examine it, it's good for Asian countries to have new experiences in the world cup championship event. "other than the countries we list in this post". maybe, that way the development of football in the Asian continent can be more developed and more evenly distributed. yes, i hope so.

Out of all the African and Asian teams that participated in the last world cup, the only team you deemed fit for your reference is Qatar. Many of these underrated teams surprised many people. You forgot that Saudi Arabia defeated the current world champion and Tunisia won the second-best team France. Cameroon defeated Brazil and Morocco got to the semifinals with a local coach Walid Regragui.

Increasing the slots of nations in Africa and Asia will not increase the performance of these countries but it will have some positive effects. It will attract more sponsorship deals and endorsements which will increase the financial base of these nations. Participating in the world cup will also help these nations to raise money that can be used for sports infrastructure and other necessary development incentives. More players will be attracted to these nations because they qualified for the world cup. It is common to see players of African descent play for European teams because they have more chances of featuring in the world cup. Top-class coaches will also be attracted, which will improve the technical aspect of these countries' national teams.

I want to conclude by saying that increasing the slots of Africa and Asia in the world cup will not reduce the quality of the world cup rather it will make it exciting and unpredictable as we saw in Qatar.

Japan has become the king of football in Asia which has been recognized by the world for a long time, even now we can see Japanese soccer players playing in Europe. Japan has never been absent in the world cup, and their matches are also very great, the Japanese national team has won many achievements by winning the Asian Cup, even Japan has the largest collection of Asian Cup titles. Because the progress of Japanese football begins with making improvements from the start. Everything is done with an orderly concept and plan. The long-term plan for Japanese football is called the "100 Year Vision".

Yes, the same is the case with South Korea, where the progress of football has also developed, and their appearance at the World Cup has also stolen the attention of the public, and many of their national team players are in the spotlight of European clubs, we can see that Asian players were so underestimated, but now they are already able to compete with European players. Even though there are still many countries that are left behind in terms of football, I don't need to discuss that part.

On this point I disagree with most of you hehehe.

Soccer in Africa and Asia has evolved a lot.
I don't know how old you are, but a few years ago Asian teams were easily defeated by almost any team from South America and Europe, and African teams were known for having a lot of disposition but lacked a bit of technique and experience.
If you want I can give examples, but I will try not to make the post too long.

Nowadays, playing against the teams from Japan, South Korea, Ghana, Morocco, and Senegal, for example, is no guarantee of victory; they are very difficult teams to beat. Just take a look at the last World Cup, when Japan qualified 1st in its group, better than Spain and Germany. South Korea was ahead of Uruguay. Morocco was first in its group, ahead of Croatia and Belgium.

Nowadays soccer has become very mixed, so the players of one national team play in many different countries, play in European leagues, the coaches are also foreigners, and soccer is more leveled than it was a few years ago. If you look closely, even the style of play is very similar, unlike in the past where teams played completely different from each other.

The spots for the continents outside the Europe-America axis I think are fair, and with this opportunity soccer in these other countries can develop.
If no opportunity is given and these countries are stuck on the continent, they may never achieve anything, but with the experience they will have in 2026, it could help a lot.
The 2026 World Cup can bring even more surprises than what happened in 2022 with Morocco.

I think if they want to increase the slots for this world cup they need to increase the Eorioan team's numbers more than other teams because, in any world cup, we see there are many European top teams that can't get qualified because there are not enough slots for them which can be a reason to say the increasing number of European teams can even increase the quality of the world cup.

If Asian and African teamsarw weak in football that doesn't mean that don't deserve to play in fifa , if they are coming at level of qualification to play than why not giving them a chance to participate and show their skills .
You never know how things will be and how many new talents will be explored during this process.

especially the weather of the country itself. because the weather can also affect the health of these ball players if the weather is bad, of course these players will experience pain and their game performance will decrease.
well, from this it must be very influential in choosing a country to be the host. regarding the stadium that is used, of course FIFA also has stadium standards that will be considered appropriate and choose from one of the stadiums.

so it really influences the weather in a country itself.

Japan and South Korea are teams in Asia that have experienced a lot of progress, especially Japan, not because they were able to beat Germany but being able to qualify for the knockout rounds is an achievement and Iran also a power team from Asia, this is quite surprising because the country's conditions are not so conducive, but the national team can still play in the World Cup.
Saudi Arabia is working hard to develop their league but not sure if it will directly impact their national team because as far as I can see the development only affects the popularity of their league. With the increase in the number of participants, Asia will also get an addition but I'm not sure that there will be a new team that will impress because Europe and America have always been the best in the World Cup.

It is not like additional slots are being given to Asian and African teams, not to improve their quality. This is a big misunderstanding. Additional slots are being given to them, because already there is an improvement in their quality. The previous allocation was based on the strength of teams half a century back, when Asian and African teams were quite weak. That is the reason why AFC/CAF were allotted so few slots compared to UEFA, for the 2022 Qatar edition. That mistake will be rectified for the 2026 edition.

I partially support your view.
I believe that the Qatar team really was a big disappointment, although that is to be expected from host countries, I believed that their performance would be better.
I also agree that the increase in the number of places for the World Cup is a mistake.
However, I disagree that Africa does not deserve more space or that they have weak teams.
In the last world cup we could notice that the power of African football is above many European teams, and I don't believe that that was just luck or an isolated fact.
We need to stop discrediting African football and give those players the respect and prestige they deserve.

I agree.

Just by increasing slots to African and Asian countries it won't miraculously make them better.

We saw that with Qatar, every game they played it was painfully obvious that they were not at the required level to be there.

I guess this will become a bit more common in the next world cup, where more countries will qualify that don't really have the level we are used to see in the world cup.

But the positive side of the story about letting other countries and nations enter the world cup is they can get motivated and get a better effect on their team after they can have the chance to play in the important tournaments and against strong teams, they normally can't play and it will have effect in their country because it can let more people watch the world cup of all over the world comparing to other world cups we saw before.

This new initiative by fifa by adding more teams can be good as there are possibilities that New teams can emerge on football horizon and talented names will be added in football world.
Really looking forward to watching more and more Asian teams in world cup 2026 .

Yes, that's right, for a country that has never qualified for the World Cup finals, it must be a matter of pride for them when they manage to compete in the World Cup. With the addition of quotas from each continent, it will create a greater chance of becoming one of the teams participating in the World Cup later.
I think they will definitely try hard to improve their quality. They also definitely don't want to just be a complement and fill in the empty slots. It should also be remembered that now besides Europe, countries outside Europe are slowly being able to talk a lot about the World Cup. We can take an example from the recently completed World Cup. How many surprising teams there are.

The reason for European dominance is their interest in football from small ages like schools , colleges universities  they have been football at All level and after that their are training academies for football so that's why they produce world best teams and footballers .
Unfortunately this is not the case with African and Asian countries.

No doubt about difference level between Europe and Asian or Africa, almost on FIFA World Cup edition Europe national teams always dominance and success lead until final although on FIFA World Cup France have loss from Argentina. For Asian and African national team seems qualify until semifinal like Morocco is the best achievement and Asian national team have longer time can't qualifying to higher stage in World Cup except edition 2002 where South Korea have success lead until semifinal.

Hope next World Cup have final team from Asian or Africa because have longer time not any national team from Asian or Africa and Europe or America always dominance in World Cup final.

It's not just about the teams that win, it's about the teams that participate and bring honor to their nation as well with whatever they have. If a team is destined to lose all their games in the group stages but end up winning at least one, even that makes the nation happy, or if they are calculated as not going out of the group stages, but they do end up going out of the group stages, it doesn't matter if they lose the next game, they did better than expected.

These matter too for the nations and even though we only remember the winners, can you forget Morocco being so good? I am sure Moroccans will never forget that for many years. Those things matter.

In fact, the previous world champions were only European national teams and Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America.
The fact is that African and Asian football has progressed significantly in recent years, which can be seen in the examples of the success of South Korea in 2002 and Morocco last year, but the best football is still played in Europe and South America.
In recent years, very good football players have come from Africa, such as Salah and Mane, but the African national teams are not yet at the level of the best national teams in the world.
Therefore, the inclusion of additional teams from Asia, Africa and North America will definitely reduce the quality of the world cup.

In fact, most of the European teams are much better and they have better quality comparing African or Asian teams If you check the FIFA ranking or the teams who won the world cups in the past they were mostly European countries or some American counties like Brazil and Argentina that's why I think to have a world cup with better quality, if were are going to see more teams in the next world cup most of these teams should be europian.