Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 284. (Read 65958 times)

No doubt, Mexico got influenced by some things in the South America which includes football and I'm already expecting that they will reach further than the other 2 countries that will also host the WC namely, Canada and USA.

While for America, their most loved and most watched sports is basketball and baseball, and then rugby comes in 3rd (which is football in America while soccer was named rather than football). Same as Canada, they too got their own sports like ice hockey which comes in 1st.

I will go a little further in your answer.
The African continent is one that urgently needs more places in the world cup, the current 5 places does not match what the teams have evolved, just think that in the last cup some strong teams did not participate, like Nigeria and Egypt.
Morocco, from Africa, came in 4th place, an excellent result and with merits.

Speaking of Asia, from 3.5 to 8.5 places also got better. I disagree with you a little bit about the level of the Asian teams.
Look at Saudi Arabia, who beat Argentina and showed a good level of soccer in the other matches. They didn't qualify, but they played well.
South Korea, played very well, disqualified against Brazil, but they played well too.
Japan, qualified first in a group that had Spain, Germany, and Costa Rica, and narrowly missed qualifying for the quarterfinals because they played against Croatia, 3rd place.

Iran and Australia in my opinion also played well, you can see that they have evolved over the years.
Only the Qatar team that I thought was weak, but it was their first participation in a World Cup, it was easy to see that they were nervous, but in the second and third game they managed to play a little better.

And one last thing I would like to say is that maybe what is missing for the national teams to evolve is to participate in the World Cup, to play against other stronger teams, with more pressure, with a lot of people watching.
This can help raise the level of soccer, so it can be a very good factor that will help develop soccer even more in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Central America.

While it can be argued there could be a decrease in the quality of the world cup at the earlier stage, this is not as clear, after all as we know almost in every single cup before this expansion there were a few powerful teams that do not make it, this was the case of Italy, so not only slightly weaker teams will make it to the world cup with the additional spots, good teams will also make it that simply had trouble during the qualification stage to the world cup.

The answer is no. maybe for the African continent, with the addition of the quota of world cup participants it can encourage them to further increase their football level. but for asia, especially asean, i doubt it. it is still too early for asean countries to participate in competing in the world cup championship. So, will the addition of the team to 48 entrants increase the level of the world cup. I say again, the answer is no. I don't know yet how the mechanism will be implemented in the 2026 world cup, and how this system will be implemented. So, I can't assume too much.

However it seems, there will be more weak teams compared to strong teams. what is certain, the 2026 world cup will not be better and more competitive as before. in the end, the participants who will enter the higher rounds are the countries that are always the favourites.

If you remember, some of the most exciting matches during Qatar 2022 involved teams from Africa and Asia. One of the African teams (Morocco) even managed to reach the semi-final stage. There is no point in giving half of all the slots to Europe, when the difference in quality between European teams and the rest of the world is now negligible. BTW, UEFA fans have nothing to worry. In absolute numbers they are getting the largest increase as the quota for that confederation increases by 3 for the 2026 edition (for CONMEBOL it is only +2).

I understand your way of thinking, but it may not exactly be 3x more expensive to watch the 2026 world cup than the other cups, and we have many variables.

In Qatar the hosting was more expensive, expensive beer, and for us from South America, the airfare is quite expensive too.
In the United States it is easy to find cheap hosting, food is also cheap, and airplane tickets are also much more affordable.
For Europeans it must be the same thing to fly to Qatar or the United States. For people from Asia, it might be a more expensive trip.

In the United States the infrastructure is also very good, and transportation is relatively cheap, even though the country has continental proportions.
It might be a little more difficult if someone wants to follow the games in the 3 countries, but think about the other side, the Mexicans for example, will be able to follow 10 games in their country, something that would be very difficult if there was only one country instead of 3.

Any choice makes it easier for a group of people and harder for others. But I think the decision of 3 hosting countries was right, it will have more benefits this way.

The FIFA World Cup is about to get lit! With the expansion to 48 teams, we're gona see some seriouss excitement, diversity, and unpredictability up in here! Can you imagin the group phase with even more teams battling it out for a spot in the knockout roundss? It's gonna be off the hook!

I'm especially pumped to see how the teams from Asia and Afrika represent on the world stage. It's their time to shine and show us what they're made of. And let's not forget the impact this could have on the growth of football in those regions. Majorr moves, people!

Of coursee, with more teams, there's a higher chance of mediocrity creeping in. FIFA better makes sure they're selecting the best of the best from each region so we dont have any snooze-fests. And let's not forget the logistical challenges that come with hosting more teams. But hey, we'll cross that bridge when we get to itt.

Dude, if you want to watch just 32 teams playing in the world cup, then you can do one thing. You can skip the group phase and then watch from the Round of 32 onwards. For fans like me, the expansion to 48 teams is the best thing that has ever happened with the FIFA world cup. It will add more diversity to the tournament, by including more teams from Asia and Africa. The current setup, being dominated by UEFA gets quite repetitive. Obviously the Europeans will be upset about it, but they need to admit that the era of European dominance in world football is over.

Maybe you are right that experienced teams will still dominate at the 2026 World Cup and that domination will occur because they are developing good football in their respective countries, especially Europe, and if other countries want they can do the same so they can compete in the World Cup because they know that the chances of qualifying are bigger because there are more spots up for grabs.

Realistically new teams will just add on to new games and little bit excitement for new teams and their fans but on larger scale honestly everything will be the same.  Same old experienced teams and Europe will dominate the world cup and winner will be amongst them. 

Looking forward to Morocco performance in next world cup .

I would guess that having a chance to bring in those low level nations which can make a surprise is the main attraction and reason along with of course money. I think having that much money is not a bad thing, we are talking about 6 billion per 4 years, so that's 1.5 billion per year income, and not really that bad, this is a business so they need to make some profit to begin with.

I do not see if it's bad for the nations and the players neither, it would be great for them to show themselves on the biggest stage, they would love to do it. So the only thing "bad" about this is low level teams playing each other, and you might as well not watch it if you don't want to.

Honestly.... analyze the numbers well:
There will be 48 different teams/countries to dispute a single cup, the others leave "with nothing", it will be absurd 80 games to be played in 32 days (more than a month) and an almost incalculable income of more than U$ 6 billion. These will probably be the new World Cup numbers from 2026 onwards, numbers that in my opinion indicate extreme greed and politics on the part of FIFA and those involved.

The increase to 48 teams simply means that we will have more weak or average teams competing in a competition that should only bring together the best from each continent.

In my opinion, the pre-selections for the World Cup should gain more prominence and monitoring by Fifa, instead of increasing the number of teams in the main world football tournament that we have.

We already had multiple debates on this topic. Some of the users feel that the inclusion of more teams would dilute the quality of the world cup. But I strongly disagree with such statements. From what we have seen in Qatar 2022, the gap between "stronger" and "weaker" teams have got narrowed. Asian and African teams are getting stronger with each passing year. And secondly, if we call this competition a "world" cup, then there should be adequate representation from each continent. Giving 4 slots to Asia, which is home of half of the world's population sounds illogical for me. And that is why I accept the decision by FIFA to expand the number of participants to 48.

It is like every country's dream to be into the World Cup. Getting an opportunity will surely make the World Cup reach the next level in terms of popularity and more people will start watching it. Nowadays the world countries that doesn't have representation too watch football supporting some other team. Now those countries could get a chance to support their own country. So this isn't irrelevant and it is a must thing and the federation have taken the right decision according to the need.

Well, I believe everyone knows about the changes that will occur in the next world cup.

Regarding the participating countries, do you believe that the insertion of more teams could increase the level of the next world cup? Or is this something irrelevant?
What's your opinion guys?

Agreed, and based on the Olympics football winning data it is United States that have won more on the Women's Football. Canada too holds few bronze medals. In mens football it is Mexico that is dominant among the three and in the last Tokyo Olympic, Mexico have managed to win the bronze medal. This shows there is good teams and in particular Mexico have the good fab base for football. USA and Canada will spend more and the same could train the teams for a better position.

We know the Latin countries are crazy about football in their country but this time the world cup will be hosted in America and all the teams hosting the tournament will be from America. In my opinion, Mexico is more popular with football fans than the United States and Canada. As you have mentioned, football is not the first favorite sport in north America, so I hope the Mexican people and Mexican fans are more interested in football than their northern counterparts.

By the looks of it, younger people do not care about any of these sports, not just one of them. Which means that it is not going to be easy to make a deduction out of this, maybe when they grow older, they will start to enjoy it a bit more? When you are young, you could go out and have a drink with your friends, but when you are old, you may rather stay at home and watch a football game, any type of football, it is a lot more fun that way.

I personally started to watch more and more sports when I got older, I will have to come clean and say that I used to enjoy NBA more, and not so much anymore, but I do still watch sports, just other ones, like F1 for example. Which means when you grow older, you may watch more sports and this could go back to how it was.

I've been paying attention to the thread of the upcoming world cup 2026, three countries are hosting at once, as @noormcs5 said and also several other sources.

2026 FIFA World Cup

In the quote above I started to think.
my view especially for fans and spectators if the world cup tournament venues are placed in 16 cities of three countries, fans who want to watch live will cost an additional three times as much, I think this will make it difficult for viewers who want to watch the 2026 world cup live. what else is the world economy deteriorating.

From the location I saw and where the 2026 world cup is taking place.


Fans and spectators will pay 3X more, when compared to the world cup that has been completed in one country/other country, such as Qatar 2022 and others, I think this will have a direct negative impact on fans who want to watch live, be it lodging costs, transportation costs and many other costs that must be incurred. if they want to watch world cup 2026 in three different countries and different cities.

Forty eight teams in total, that is a plus sixteen more. This is a good chance. The continents of America, Europe, and Africa all have strong teams and are likely to take the majority of the new participants. Asia will have an additional two to four teams and Middle East teams are good in the region.

India is currently ranked 106 on the FIFA ranking list. India still has time to further improve its ranking and quality, so it is not impossible. However, aggressive football programs at a young age are the best way to build a future team. Because India is primarily a cricket playing nation, there may be little interest in football there. 

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