Can't be too early to talk about the 2026 World Cup

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Do fans in the West Indies want a combined team?
There's been some abortive attempts at making one, basically run by Trinidad but with voiced support from Jamaica. But if the member FAs are opposed (particularly the smaller ones), it's not going anywhere. This video says that it's been discussed and a lot of people are in favor, but also lays out the clear challenges (i.e. cultural divides between the English, French, Spanish and Dutch speaking constituent countries).

There have been attempts at a super-national club league, all of which failed until the CONCACAF League gave them a reasonable competition - though it's now getting replaced by the expanded CCL, with Caribbean and Central American qualifying tournaments. I suppose those might provide some evidence for why a supra-national team could or could not succeed.
 

singaporesoxfan

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There's been some abortive attempts at making one, basically run by Trinidad but with voiced support from Jamaica. But if the member FAs are opposed (particularly the smaller ones), it's not going anywhere. This video says that it's been discussed and a lot of people are in favor, but also lays out the clear challenges (i.e. cultural divides between the English, French, Spanish and Dutch speaking constituent countries).

There have been attempts at a super-national club league, all of which failed until the CONCACAF League gave them a reasonable competition - though it's now getting replaced by the expanded CCL, with Caribbean and Central American qualifying tournaments. I suppose those might provide some evidence for why a supra-national team could or could not succeed.
Why not a West Indies team similar to the cricket one, with mostly just the English speaking countries?
 

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Why not a West Indies team similar to the cricket one, with mostly just the English speaking countries?
Likely because it would put pressure on them to merge federations, with a corresponding loss of FIFA votes, and opportunity for blatant bribery development spending.
 

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Explained: How a 48-team World Cup could work - The Athletic

Of those two new ideas — the 12 groups of four and the US sport-style approach of having two separate 24-team competitions funnel into a final four — the former is the one most people seem to be mulling over.

On the plus side, you avoid the collusion risk and keep the drama of concurrent kick-offs to complete the group stage; on the negative side, you stretch the tournament out to 104 games. Just let that settle in: a 104-game World Cup.
Splitting the tournament into two halves at the outset — the “conference” approach — would mitigate this particular source of potential unfairness but it would add a much bigger one with the inevitable “hard/easy” side-of-the-bracket debate.
This would still lead to 3rd place teams on each side advancing, but it keeps the simultaneous games in place.
 

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Why not a West Indies team similar to the cricket one, with mostly just the English speaking countries?
If you're limiting to just the English-speaking countries, I think you'd either have to include Jamaica, in which case they will dominate the team's roster, or if you don't, then it ends up being a fairly weak roster. The examples I gave above have some credible high-level professionals with heritage from Barbados, with occasional ones from St Kitts, St Lucia, and Grenada. It would be very well supplemented if you can include French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Martinique.

You could probably skip the Spanish-speaking ones without much impact.

The Dutch ones, however, would be the core of the team, if you can get them to join. Curacao and Suriname would take the team from "Gold Cup appearances and serving as credible international competition" to "serious contenders to qualify for the World Cup". But Suriname, for all its domestic political weirdness around their team (only recently accepting Dutch dual-nationals and not making them feel very welcome), may well prefer to continue independently. I'm not sure whether that would help recruit all the dual-nationals brought up in Netherlands and playing in the Eredivisie (or better), or whether they'd be more attracted to a Caribbean meta-team.
 

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While I'm at it, FIFA needs to adopt a rule that for dual nationals who held both citizenships before their first cap, a cap-tie even in an official competition does not preclude them from playing for a team ranked outside of the top (pick a number) 100-or-so, if the cap-tying team does not call them up. International football has enough lopsided games involving no-hope participants; predatory cap-ties accentuate this by taking away talent from lower-ranked teams, while providing no benefit to the player, the tying team, or the fans. Yeah, if Jamal Musiala is deciding between Germany and England, he needs to pick and stick with it or the whole notion of "playing for your country" is diluted to meaninglessness. But for teams who are a long way from the world cup, it really does not affect the legitimacy of the competition for a player to be able to play for a contender and a non-contender if he has heritage with both countries.

Teams just inside a ranking of 100 (by FIFA ranking, which is a poor man's Elo at this point) include places like Armenia, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Congo; teams just outside the top 100 include Madagascar, Trinidad, New Zealand, India, Estonia. Even in a 48-team world cup, it's very unlikely that a few dual-national players are going to be the difference in qualifying for one of those teams.
 

singaporesoxfan

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While I'm at it, FIFA needs to adopt a rule that for dual nationals who held both citizenships before their first cap, a cap-tie even in an official competition does not preclude them from playing for a team ranked outside of the top (pick a number) 100-or-so, if the cap-tying team does not call them up. International football has enough lopsided games involving no-hope participants; predatory cap-ties accentuate this by taking away talent from lower-ranked teams, while providing no benefit to the player, the tying team, or the fans. Yeah, if Jamal Musiala is deciding between Germany and England, he needs to pick and stick with it or the whole notion of "playing for your country" is diluted to meaninglessness. But for teams who are a long way from the world cup, it really does not affect the legitimacy of the competition for a player to be able to play for a contender and a non-contender if he has heritage with both countries.

Teams just inside a ranking of 100 (by FIFA ranking, which is a poor man's Elo at this point) include places like Armenia, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Congo; teams just outside the top 100 include Madagascar, Trinidad, New Zealand, India, Estonia. Even in a 48-team world cup, it's very unlikely that a few dual-national players are going to be the difference in qualifying for one of those teams.
One thing that could sink this idea at FIFA is that it is a minority of countries that allow dual citizenship, and the ones that do are mostly countries in Western Europe and the Americas (which are largely already in the top 100), so your idea wouldn’t give a benefit to most of these teams below #100, since players would have to actually switch their nationalities to play
 
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One thing that could sink this idea at FIFA is that it is a minority of countries that allow dual citizenship, and the ones that do are mostly countries in Western Europe and the Americas (which are largely already in the top 100), so your idea wouldn’t give a benefit to most of these teams below #100, since players would have to actually switch their nationalities to play
I thought it was more than that - this says it's about half of all the countries in the world, including plenty in Asia and Africa. From my dual-citizenship process with Italy, it's common knowledge that Japan is by far the most insistent about making dual nationals choose between Japan or the other one; I was under the impression that in most countries where there's a rule against it, they're not particularly aggressive about forcing you to renounce one.

Regardless, the FIFA eligibility rules for whether you can represent a country are no longer tied to citizenship (due to concerns ~15 years ago over naturalized Brazilians). If you, your parents or grandparents were born in a country, or you've lived in that country at least 5 years, you're FIFA-eligible for that country, regardless of whether you hold the citizenship. The only other factor is whether you've been cap-tied to another country, and if so whether you held eligibility for both countries at the time of representing that other country.
 

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The Wikipedia article isn’t that well written on actually being a national and does give off that impression that you don’t have to be one. But the actual FIFA laws that govern international competition are much clearer on this. Article 5 says you have to hold a “permanent nationality” by being born in a country, getting naturalized as a citizen, or otherwise being qualified to be a national.Here’s the text

Any person holding a permanent nationality that is not dependent on residence in a certain country is eligible to play for the representative teams of the association of that country.
2. There is a distinction between holding a nationality and being eligible to obtain a nationality. A player holds a nationality, if, through the operation of a national law, they have:
a) automatically received a nationality (e.g. from birth) without being required to undertake any further administrative requirements (e.g. abandoning a separate nationality); or
b) acquired a nationality by undertaking a naturalisation process.
https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/ccab990abf45fcf6/original/ro8mje8vw98yp3rvfbmi-pdf.pdf

That same FIFA Explainer also points out that the way you prove nationality is by holding a permanent international passport.

In this respect, FIFA competition regulations consistently state that proof of “nationality” is only provided through the holding of a “permanent international passport”. By way of example, article 19 paragraph 3 of the Regulations for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Preliminary Competition provides:
“The only document considered to be valid proof of a player’s identity and nationality shall be a permanent international passport that explicitly, and in Latin characters, states the player’s first name(s) and surname(s), as well as his day, month and year of birth. Identity cards or other local supporting official documents shall not be accepted as a valid means of identification...”
Of course, there are more complex legal questions since FIFA associations don’t correspond directly to UN sovereign states - eg what does it mean to be a national of England - that the doc goes into but the heart of it is you have to be a national of the country you represent, which is proven by carrying a passport of that country. Article 6 then adds on the added eligibility conditions, but clearly it’s on top of those:

Any player, who, under the terms of art. 5, is eligible to represent more than one association on account of his nationality, may play in an international match for one of these associations only if, in addition to holding the relevant nationality, he fulfils at least one of the following conditions:
The additional things about clear connections like family or residency are not a replacement of the nationality rule, they’re an add on to prevent the phenomenon of countries giving citizenship to players just to get them on their national teams. So now a country can’t just naturalize Brazilians like you said, they have to demonstrate a clear connection.
 

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I see, thank you for correcting me.

Returning to the subject at hand, though, there appear to be a great many countries which might be relevant to a relaxing of FIFA cap-tie rules for bottom-half national teams, and not just in the Americas and Western Europe. It certainly helps that of the FIFA top-20 nations (who might be interested in cap-tying a promising young player for competitive reasons, whether they go on to call them up or not), the only ones who do not permit dual-citizenship according to that list are Netherlands, Senegal and Iran. Even Serbia and Morocco allow it.

Suriname does not allow it generally, but has instituted a "sports passport" to allow the diaspora to represent them in international football. Curacao is legally a part of the Netherlands, of course, so FIFA representation is an internal matter for them (much as it is for the UK Home Nations and, I think, British Overseas Territories).
 

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I bristle at the implied notion that the main reason the Caribbean and Oceanic countries don’t group together is only national FA desires for corruption/influence. These are independent countries with a friendly relationship with their geographic neighbors but no real history of competing as one, other than the West Indies cricket team. Why would they want to group together? It’s like asking Millwall and Charlton to merge just because they’re near each other and could have better success that way – these countries know they’re the lower divisions of international football, and like a lower division team they’d prefer to keep their identity and define success in perhaps a more limited way
 

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On another note, after watching the Morocco and Senegal games, one thing I realised is that it is extremely easy for fans from the Middle East and Africa to visit Qatar – not just because flights are cheaper but because there are fewer visa restrictions. I wonder what it will be like for 2026, given that the US has historically been a tough place to get visas to
 

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On another note, after watching the Morocco and Senegal games, one thing I realised is that it is extremely easy for fans from the Middle East and Africa to visit Qatar – not just because flights are cheaper but because there are fewer visa restrictions. I wonder what it will be like for 2026, given that the US has historically been a tough place to get visas to
My experience tells me the Ghanaians, at least, will find a way to be there in numbers.
 

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I bristle at the implied notion that the main reason the Caribbean and Oceanic countries don’t group together is only national FA desires for corruption/influence. These are independent countries with a friendly relationship with their geographic neighbors but no real history of competing as one, other than the West Indies cricket team. Why would they want to group together? It’s like asking Millwall and Charlton to merge just because they’re near each other and could have better success that way – these countries know they’re the lower divisions of international football, and like a lower division team they’d prefer to keep their identity and define success in perhaps a more limited way
I hope you don't think that I think the bolded, because I don't, and if I gave you that impression I apologize. There are plenty of good reasons for them to not be interested, or to think it's not something worth pursuing even if it's a fun idea in the abstract. To the extent that the bolded has any influence on the decision, it could be stipulated away by FIFA (i.e. current FAs keep their votes), if all involved were happy with that outcome.

I'm coming at this from the following thoughts:

  1. I would like the USA to be challenged within its confederation more, and not just by Mexico, because I think it would make us better, and would make following international football more fun.
  2. CONCACAF has (arguably) 12-15 FAs that can readily field competitive, well-coached international teams of professional footballers. It then also has ~25 nations ranging from small to microscopic, who can barely field teams of half-coached semi-pro players. It's a bit like having a few EPL teams, a few Championship and League two teams, and then a bunch of teams from the English National League North and the Isthmian League, all play each other in competition... repeated forever. Yes, in the FA Cup you occasionally get Kidderminster Harriers beating Reading, or what-have-you, but you get that 1% of the time. When one side has 1/1000th the financial resources (or population resources) of the other, it's just not sporting.
  3. A meta-national team composed of the small nations' few pros playing abroad, who could give the big boys a game, would be more fair from a sporting perspective, more entertaining from a viewing perspective, and make more money for all involved.
  4. There is still value to having the small nations bring in their "domestic semipro league all-stars" teams to play each other in something like what the Caribbean Cup used to be. So there's no reason to get rid of that or the respective FAs. You just enter the meta-team for the continental championship, for world cup qualifying, or where that's the better choice for a friendly.
  5. A meta-team would also have the effect of showing off the couple of credible pros (or pro prospects) that each tiny nation can field, in a manner that might boost their professional careers and allow more of them to have success in the game and then evangelize for it back home. The team would be a showcase to clubs looking for value plays, the same way the World Cup and continental championships are already for bigger nations. Much easier to get a scout to watch Caribbean vs Mexico, with the talent already pre-filtered, than to watch Barbados vs Montserrat.

You correctly note that nowhere in that assessment are the opinions of soccer people within these countries reflected. I looked for and gave the only links I could find on the subject, but ultimately we'd have to just ask them. Maybe people are violently opposed to the idea, and having the team is more a statement of national sovereignty, and the possibility of competitiveness is way down the list of priorities. Maybe there'd be too much squabbling. But for the reasons above, I think it's worth asking.
 

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On another note, after watching the Morocco and Senegal games, one thing I realised is that it is extremely easy for fans from the Middle East and Africa to visit Qatar – not just because flights are cheaper but because there are fewer visa restrictions. I wonder what it will be like for 2026, given that the US has historically been a tough place to get visas to
I don’t doubt that this helped get some extra fans there, and I’m sure that there was a degree of comfort for many that other hosts could not provide. That said, for at least the past three world cups, buying a ticket effectively guaranteed you a visa (I’m assuming there were some exceptions for known criminals, etc.). You had to apply for some kind of fan identification (this years was called the Hayya Card), but restrictions were dropped or greatly relaxed. For example, I didn’t have to jump through all the normal hoops (letter of invitation, for example) or have a visa for Russia, and just showed the FIFA-issued Fan ID to enter the country.
 

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On another note, after watching the Morocco and Senegal games, one thing I realised is that it is extremely easy for fans from the Middle East and Africa to visit Qatar – not just because flights are cheaper but because there are fewer visa restrictions. I wonder what it will be like for 2026, given that the US has historically been a tough place to get visas to
Hopefully fans from around the world are able to come see the World Cup without bureaucratic red tape, but there are so many diaspora communities in the US who will be highly motivated for a rare chance to see their team live in a high-stakes game that I doubt there will be much of a damper on the atmosphere even if there are visa difficulties for some foreigners.

The United States was the #1 ticket-buyer for the Qatar WC outside of Qatar itself and I'm pretty confident that a sizable portion of that group were not USMNT fans.
 

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Will they try place the teams around the US based on the makeup of the local population? For example a Portugal game at Gillette would make sense or a Japan game in San Francisco.
 

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Will they try place the teams around the US based on the makeup of the local population? For example a Portugal game at Gillette would make sense or a Japan game in San Francisco.
Except El Tri, who have to play at the Archie Post field at UVM.
 

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Will they try place the teams around the US based on the makeup of the local population? For example a Portugal game at Gillette would make sense or a Japan game in San Francisco.
I think before we can even address this question we need to figure out if each group will be somewhat geographically concentrated to minimize travel — i.e. Group A plays all of its games at Miami/Atlanta/Houston/Dallas

Except El Tri, who have to play at the Archie Post field at UVM.
It would be great to do this while Egypt plays the Czech Republic in the Azteca or something.
 

allstonite

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I think before we can even address this question we need to figure out if each group will be somewhat geographically concentrated to minimize travel — i.e. Group A plays all of its games at Miami/Atlanta/Houston/Dallas



It would be great to do this while Egypt plays the Czech Republic in the Azteca or something.
That was another thought I had. I’m sure the players have enjoyed not having to take multi hour flights between games and being able to stay in their camps basically the entire time
 

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On another note, after watching the Morocco and Senegal games, one thing I realised is that it is extremely easy for fans from the Middle East and Africa to visit Qatar – not just because flights are cheaper but because there are fewer visa restrictions. I wonder what it will be like for 2026, given that the US has historically been a tough place to get visas to
Anecdotally, I remember tons of Nigerian fans at Foxboro back in '94. I was pretty surprised at the time, but I was a wee Zoso then.
 

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Hopefully fans from around the world are able to come see the World Cup without bureaucratic red tape, but there are so many diaspora communities in the US who will be highly motivated for a rare chance to see their team live in a high-stakes game that I doubt there will be much of a damper on the atmosphere even if there are visa difficulties for some foreigners.

The United States was the #1 ticket-buyer for the Qatar WC outside of Qatar itself and I'm pretty confident that a sizable portion of that group were not USMNT fans.
It's true, but there's sometimes a distinct difference between diaspora community fans and fans from the actual country themselves, not in the level of passion, but just in the way they celebrate and cheer for their team (Italian-Americans following soccer are quite different from Italians for example), and it's always fun for me to see those cultural differences in the World Cup.

I also wonder which host city would be best for the US to be in in the group stage, whether for reasons of strategy, logistics, or just getting the "home team" atmosphere.
 

dirtynine

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I’m a local, so this is homer thinking, but I think Philly can make a strong case for a US group game. 2026 is going to be a big Philadelphia summer. They will be at the epicenter of the 250th anniversary celebrations, the MLB All Star Game will be there, etc. It’s a slam dunk from a storyline perspective. Assuming we end up with 3 group games (I do think this is likely), it would slot in as a good east coast spot (close to a bunch of other metros, good intercity transportation options, etc).

Did the USSF get to pick their match venues in 1994? I assume this is standard but I never really thought about it.
 

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I’m a local, so this is homer thinking, but I think Philly can make a strong case for a US group game. 2026 is going to be a big Philadelphia summer. They will be at the epicenter of the 250th anniversary celebrations, the MLB All Star Game will be there, etc. It’s a slam dunk from a storyline perspective. Assuming we end up with 3 group games (I do think this is likely), it would slot in as a good east coast spot (close to a bunch of other metros, good intercity transportation options, etc).

Did the USSF get to pick their match venues in 1994? I assume this is standard but I never really thought about it.
Hosts are usually Group A and get to pick (or work with FIFA on, not sure about the mechanics, but leads to same result) where the opening game is - that's why kickoff was in Moscow in 2018 and Sao Paulo in 2014 I think

Edit: to your point, I think Philly would be great for a US group game. Would draw in crowds from NYC + DC like you said, and it's a city that doesn't get the love it should from international visitors
 
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I'll note that the opening game has only featured the host since 2006; from 1974-2002 it featured the defending champions, and before that there was a mix of different opening formats, but usually opening in the largest stadium of the host country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIFA_World_Cup_opening_matches

I looked up the 1994 schedule and the US played in the Pontiac Silverdome and the Rose Bowl; a third stadium in the group was Stanford Stadium. That Michigan-California split seems not ideal, and I would hope, both for USMNT success and general tournament quality, that they try to group stadiums close together for the group stages, and at least not make people cross (two!) time zones. My memory as a teenager watching the games from across the world was the commentators talking about the heat of the US summer and about the long travel distances
 

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Here are the host cities:
US (11) - Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle
Canada (2) - Toronto and Vancouver
Mexico (3) - Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey

If we are doing 16 groups of 3, we could do one city per group (since there's no need for the final day with two games played simultaneously); presumably Canada would take Toronto, Mexico would take Mexico City, but I don't feel there's an obvious front-runner for the U.S. Probably not LA since it's getting the 2028 Olympics already. An East Coast site would have slightly more favourable worldwide viewing times for the opening ceremony (kick off on a Sunday around 12 noon Eastern, 6pm Europe, midnight China / 1am Tokyo time) compared to a West Coast opening ceremony game that would probably have a 10am PST kickoff (1pm Eastern , 7pm Europe, 1am China / 2am Tokyo time), which might matter to FIFA.
 

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Here are the host cities:
US (11) - Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle
Canada (2) - Toronto and Vancouver
Mexico (3) - Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey

If we are doing 16 groups of 3, we could do one city per group (since there's no need for the final day with two games played simultaneously); presumably Canada would take Toronto, Mexico would take Mexico City, but I don't feel there's an obvious front-runner for the U.S. Probably not LA since it's getting the 2028 Olympics already. An East Coast site would have slightly more favourable worldwide viewing times for the opening ceremony (kick off on a Sunday around 12 noon Eastern, 6pm Europe, midnight China / 1am Tokyo time) compared to a West Coast opening ceremony game that would probably have a 10am PST kickoff (1pm Eastern , 7pm Europe, 1am China / 2am Tokyo time), which might matter to FIFA.
Not Miami. Would be an away game if against a CONCACAF/CONMEBOL side. I'd also stay away from Texas and the West Coast. That leaves Philly, ATL, Boston, KC, and NY. NY makes a lot of sense. ATL too.
 

dirtynine

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If it ends up being 3 group matches, I have a hunch KC will get a US game. They‘ve established a bit of a brand as long-time diehards - notice Fox shows the Power & Light for American crowd reaction shots. And it would be the most favorable venue for the US in terms of not being completely overmatched by fans from anywhere else in the Americas (should such a matchup happen). Philly-KC-LA would be cool.
 

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I'll note that the opening game has only featured the host since 2006; from 1974-2002 it featured the defending champions, and before that there was a mix of different opening formats, but usually opening in the largest stadium of the host country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIFA_World_Cup_opening_matches

I looked up the 1994 schedule and the US played in the Pontiac Silverdome and the Rose Bowl; a third stadium in the group was Stanford Stadium. That Michigan-California split seems not ideal, and I would hope, both for USMNT success and general tournament quality, that they try to group stadiums close together for the group stages, and at least not make people cross (two!) time zones. My memory as a teenager watching the games from across the world was the commentators talking about the heat of the US summer and about the long travel distances
England v. US if they get same group again and England is defending champion at the site of the Liberty Bell/250th would be tremendous
 

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Alright it's 3 days till we have another game to watch. It's time for me to roll out my proposal for CONCACAF qualifying, possibly to dry-run for 2026 but mostly for 2030+.

Problem:

- Historically, the close competition between USA - Mexico is the most compelling part of qualifying, with actual stakes on the line. With Canada rising to enter the fray it might be more than a 2-horse race, but that's the biggest draw and the one with the most drama and chance to mint new soccer fans.
- CONCACAF going from 3.5 spots to 6 2/3 (in 2026 including hosts), and probably 6.5 in 2030+, means that you'd never again have a final-round Hex (Because everyone would qualify, what's the point), and even an Ocho would probably be very low-drama if 7th place out of 8 gets a playoff spot.
- This means the likeliest format that's been proposed is a double-hex, each of which awards a few spots... but then USA and Mexico would be in different pools as long as they remain #1 and #2 in the conference, and even slipping to #3 still would only mean a 50-50 chance of appearing in a group together. No more qualifiers of Mexico in Ohio or USA going to the Azteca with something on the line.

Solution:

This new qualifying format would be ornate, but I think solve the problem. It came to me, as all good ideas do, in the shower. This assumes 6.5 bids to the World Cup for CONCACAF.

  • Preliminary Round: Some form of elimination of the bottom teams to get down to 29 teams remaining (there are 41 member associations right now, of which 35 are FIFA members and can enter the World Cup). If that's just a home-and-home, fine, if they want more matches, great, have 'em whenever. We're talking like Anguilla and Turks and Caicos here, they can figure it out.
  • The First Round is then split into two paths. The top 4 CONCACAF nations by ranking play a 4-team, 6-game Power Pool. Top 2 teams in that pool qualify for the World Cup (in only 6 matches). Bottom 2 teams go to Second Round.
  • Meanwhile, teams 5 through 29 play in a set of 5x 5-team single-legged pools just like the First Round this cycle, where you get 2 home and 2 away matches over 3 windows. Top 2 in each pool move on.
  • Second Round: The 10 teams advancing from the 5-team pools are mixed with the two bottom teams from the Power Pool, and put into 3x pools of 4. 6 more matches. Group winners qualify (total of 5 spots awarded now). Second-place teams move on to the final round.
  • Third Round: Take the 3 runners-up and distribute the final WCF bid and the ICPO bid. Could be a 3-team 4-game pool, or just rank them by second-round pool results and have 3rd play home-and-home with 2nd; loser eliminated, winner plays 1st; winner of that qualifies, loser goes to ICPO. Or pull in the best 3rd-placed team from the Second Round and have another 4-team pool, even though it'll include one rematch.

Obviously, the whole point of the power pool is to get USA-vs-Mexico WCQs with real stakes, despite increased bids. And you can have some fun with who qualifies to the power pool, e.g. GC winner, NL winner, etc. But I also think it works nicely, with a manageable number of games for all involved, and a small but reasonable margin for error for a good team that has a bad game (or even two) to still pull it out. You could argue for 2x Hex pools in the second round instead of 3x 4-team pools, but then with 10 games instead of 6, I think you end up needing too many competition windows. So this is the best that I could come up with that (A) preserved a USA-Mexico WCQ with real stakes, and (B) allocated 6.5 bids to the World Cup fairly and without taking too many (or too few) matches.
 
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trekfan55

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Whatever CONCACAF decides to do there are two things:

1. No USA-Mexico matches for WCQ for 2026 (unless FIFA decides hosts no longer qualify automatically and that is not happening)
2. But even then, USA and Mexico have always been the top 2/3 of CONCACAF, at least in recent history. That means that regardless of the format, they are both going in. (I know the 2018 cycle happened but that was a major fluke or even a slip, it was the perfect storm of events happening in those 3 games) Yeah too soon, sorry guys.

So at the end of the day, we all like watching those games but there is very little chance that Mexico or the US miss the WC Finals because of them.
 

InstaFace

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Right, the reason for my little thought experiment above is that Mexico and USA are both such shoo-ins that you really have to work to figure out how to come up with USA-vs-Mexico matches with real stakes.

This first came across my radar after the Cincinnati WCQ last November when we basically ran Mexico off the field, the first time Berhalter-ball seemed to be paying dividends. That game was so awesome, and the crowd atmosphere there (and in the Azteca in March) was so awesome, that it would be a real tragedy if we couldn't continue to have that. Gold Cup finals and Nations League just doesn't have the same cachet (and may in fact not necessarily involve home-stadium matches, either).
 

OCST

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The top-heaviness of CONCACAF is a structural problem. The other confederations also have a range of powerhouses and minnows, of course, but there is no other where you have 2-3 shoo-ins, a group of 6-10 nations of whom half will be competitive in any cycle, and then 30+ small countries. Maybe - maybe - a couple of these would threaten to qualify in a 4 - spot CONCACAF pool, and none would have a realistic shot of getting out of a 32-team WC group stage.
 

InstaFace

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Dirtynine writes in another thread:

This is good news - FIFA could scrap the change to 3-team groups in 2026. That the third match day was so exciting this past edition has given them pause. No final word on a successor format. Also buried in that article - teams should be expected to play in geographic pods in the group stage. I had not heard that before. So a team that is playing in New York will probably play in Boston and Philly too. Pretty cool, makes planning to follow a team a lot easier.
This of course was long reported in various articles upthread, and so while not unexpected it's at least nice to see them following through on something sensible that everyone wants. Still unsaid is the exact format that would replace it.

I have to say, I don't take very seriously the environmental objections to the World Cup, even though I consider myself an environmentalist. The relative scope of a little incremental international travel (which for many attendees would probably have been replaced by other leisure travel, given their disposable income) and hosted games seems rather small relative to other contributors to global warming. Geographical pods makes sense (and should probably take into consideration the first round of knockout play, too), and I think that alone can knock off half or more of the expected air-miles of the event. If the US was playing in Boston, NYC and Philly, I would be driving or Amtrak'ing to all of those, and I imagine so would most of us.
 

dirtynine

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Thanks for moving this to a better thread, @InstaFace. Agreed, the environmental impact angle is something I think we’re going to have to get increasingly used to, as much if a sidebar as it can seem. In North America we have sports teams flying all over the place all the time, but it seems like others (the EU in particular) are getting less tolerant of even the appearance of hypocrisy there when it comes to climate action.
 

nayrbrey

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FIFA set to announce that they are going back to 12 - 4 team groups to keep the final game day as it has been previously. Also they are allowing 8 3rd place teams to advance to the knockouts. Will increase the total number of games to 104 and will be longest duration World Cup ever.

https://theathletic.com/4307230/2023/03/14/world-cup-2026-format-usa/?source=user_shared_article

The new format is for 12 groups of four, with the eight best third-placed teams joining the top two in the knockout rounds. This restores the jeopardy of the final round of group-stage games and reduces the chance of collusion.
Edit- 104 games? My god that is going to be a glorious summer.
 
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Zososoxfan

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FIFA set to announce that they are going back to 12 - 4 team groups to keep the final game day as it has been previously. Also they are allowing 8 3rd place teams to advance to the knockouts. Will increase the total number of games to 104 and will be longest duration World Cup ever.

https://theathletic.com/4307230/2023/03/14/world-cup-2026-format-usa/?source=user_shared_article


Edit- 104 games? My god that is going to be a glorious summer.
It's an OK format, but it's going to really emphasize the old adage that it's 2 tournaments smashed together to make 1. The group stage will be low stakes and one tourney, with the R32 (!) forward being a straightforward 5-round KO cup. My recollection of the '94 group stage was that you had a bunch of underperforming group stage bronze medalists getting unceremoniously dumped in the R16 (looking at you Argentina).

Looking at the '94 WC in more detail, let's focus on the 3rd place KO qualifiers: Argentina, Belgium, USA (USA! USA!), and Italy (!!!).

Argentina I remember vividly as these are my first sports fan memories. Argentina shellacked Greece 4-0 led by a Bati-gol hattrick and Maradona drug-infused strike (his goal celebration is what led, fairly, to investigating him for doping), followed by a hard-fought 2-1 win over Nigeria, before Maradona was suspended. Argentina never recovered and lost 2-0 to Bulgaria, before getting dumped by Romania in a highly entertaining affair.

Belgium was in one of those funny groups where the points after MW3 was 6, 6, 6, 0, with Morocco serving as the punching bag (how ironic now that they are world powerhouse Morocco lol). They played a decent Germany side in the R16, and lost 3-2 in a scoreline that flatters them IIRC.

I probably don't need to remind everyone about the USA's performance, but they earned a draw against an average Swiss side to open things, won that unforgettable (and terribly sad) Colombia match, before falling to Romania. They still earned the right to play Brazil in R16. My recollection of that game is that the US did very well to play physical and disrupt the Brazilians during the first half, and then Leonardo swung an elbow and knocked out Tab Ramos. The US continued to sit back and only came undone in the 70th minute by a Bebeto goal.

Finally, I didn't realize that Italy had snuck into the KOs as a 3rd place team as well. This was another funky group, where all teams finished on 4 points with GDs of 0 (yes, I didn't make that up). After GD, goals scored was the tiebreaker, with Mexico finishing 1st with 3, and Italy and Ireland tied at 2. But since the Irish had beaten Italy head-to-head, Italy finished 3rd. Italy then scraped by a really fun Nigeria team (Finidi George, Jay Jay Okocha, Sunday Oliseh, Daniel Amokachi, etc.) in the R16. Italy then beat a poor Spain side in the QF, scoring very late AGAIN to go through. Italy found its groove and beat an overmatched Bulgaria side in the semis before...well, you know the ending.

The big difference between '94 and '26 is that in the former you were still whittling the field down to 16 sides, whereas in '26 we're going to have 32 KO participants. While this last WC did show us (to my surprise) that there is enough quality and sophistication in the world game to have 32 decent sides, that doesn't outweigh a couple of big drawbacks to this format. First, I think we're going to see a lot of groups with 3 good sides and 1 punching bag. Not the worst thing in the world, but it does change the group dynamics quite a bit (for the worse IMO). In addition, some of the lower quality KO sides will have the chance to knockout some big fish or alternatively just be overmatched and get dumped out. Much like '94, I think we will see most 'big name' sides go through as a result and we won't have any huge upsets like in 2022 with Germany, and to a lesser extent Uruguay, Belgium, Denmark, and Mexico. Perhaps a team like '22 Germany squeaks into the KOs and goes on a run like Italy in '94.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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The problem with this format is that it's going to lead to some inequities in the first round of the knockouts. You can't seed, because the schedule will be predetermined based on group. The number 1 finishers in four groups are going to be slotted to play number 2 teams in groups, instead of number 3 teams. And you're going to get several second place finishers that get to play other second place finishers. You could end up with a situation in which a team gets all 9 points and has to play a very strong second place finisher, while a team that wins a group with 4 points on goal difference gets the worst third place finisher. And four of the number 2 finishers won't have to play a group winner at all.

What I wonder is whether they will set the pots so that the teams on the 1 lines in the first three pots will be protected with respect to knockout matches if they make it. I assume that USA, Mexico and Canada will be A1, B1, and C1. I guess there's no way to know for sure. But I wonder if it's going to be the A1, B1, C1 and D1 finishers that are guaranteed the third place finishers.

Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but the only way I can see they could do the first round of the knockouts would be as follows. Not sure how they will slot the third place finishers. Probably like Euros. It will be predetermined.

1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 3
1 v. 2
1 v. 2
1 v. 2
1 v. 2
2 v. 2
2 v. 2
2 v. 2
2 v. 2
 

dirtynine

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They should let the 12 group winners pick their R32 opponents in a draft by FIFA ranking. The last 4 matches could be assigned by draw. Confederation conflict rules would still apply to keep certain matchups from happening too early. One day some sport is going to allow this and it’s gonna be fantastic.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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They should let the 12 group winners pick their R32 opponents in a draft by FIFA ranking. The last 4 matches could be assigned by draw. Confederation conflict rules would still apply to keep certain matchups from happening too early. One day some sport is going to allow this and it’s gonna be fantastic.
Can't happen. To get the world cup done in a reasonable amount of time, they need to preassign everything. The only way you can have the schedule work is to have the teams that play in the early groups play the first knock out games. Maybe there's a little flexibility, but this is already going to be a long tournament with one extra round. If the top group A team wanted to draft the third place team in group L, it can't happen because group L would have finished the day before the knockout round starts.
 

dirtynine

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Can't happen. To get the world cup done in a reasonable amount of time, they need to preassign everything. The only way you can have the schedule work is to have the teams that play in the early groups play the first knock out games. Maybe there's a little flexibility, but this is already going to be a long tournament with one extra round. If the top group A team wanted to draft the third place team in group L, it can't happen because group L would have finished the day before the knockout round starts.
Yeah. You’re 100% right. Once they start letting 3rd place teams qualify I feel compelled to give the better teams some advantage for finishing first - and spectacle never hurts - but the point stands. This will need to be pre-arranged to a T.
 

InstaFace

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There are reasonable solutions that would take into account all of that and still allow for the fun of choosing your opponent.

For example, the 2022 World Cup had a 4-day group stage rotation (e.g. USA played 11/21, 11/25, 11/29), with 2 groups playing each day. And each day's cluster sent 4 teams to the R16, of which 4 teams played on 3 days rest (Argentina-Australia and Brazil-Korea), 8 played on 4 days rest, and 4 on 5 days. Everyone played an R16 opponent coming off the same rest as they did.

Well, instead, if you assume the 2026 World Cup will likewise have a 4-day rotation, but with 3 groups playing each day, then each day's cluster will send 8 teams to the knockout rounds. Of whom, you would assume, 4 would play on 4 days rest and 4 would play on 5 days. So you could say:

- The 3rd place qualifiers won't be the 8 best 3rd-place teams when ranked across all 12, it'll be the best 2 out of the 3 3rds within each day's cluster.
- The 3 group winners within each day's cluster get ranked somehow, and then in that order can choose either (A) their R32 opponent from among the qualifiers in the other 2 groups in the cluster, or (B) which game (day/location) they want to play their R32 match in (on either 4 or 5 days' rest).
- If they don't choose an opponent, FIFA determines it somehow, and does likewise for the at-least-2 knockout teams within a cluster who won't get drafted by a group winner. If they do choose an opponent, the game (day/location) they get can be either pre-determined, or set by FIFA to be more fun. These will have to include some matchups on 3- or 5-days rest, just to spread teams out throughout the bracket, and ensure there are no rematches before the semis.

Why let group winners pick A or B? Well, some teams really wouldn't want to pick their opponent (out of respect or superstition) and would be made to feel awkward if they were forced to. Perhaps even to the point of half-assing a match and coming in a runner-up, so they aren't put on that spot. We saw a bit of that gamesmanship on the final GS matchday, not to like a Gijon level but I think it affected substitutions. So you don't want to force it, leave people an out. But I think most teams, given the chance, would love to pick their opponents.
 

InstaFace

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CONCACAF announced its 2026 WC qualifying format, for the 3 2/3s bids it will have aside from the 3 co-hosts. CONCACAF has 32 FIFA-affiliated FAs aside from the hosts.

First round (March 2024): 4 lowest-ranked teams play a home-and-home (2 advancing)

Second round (June 2024 and June 2025 ?!): Other 28 teams enter; 30 teams are split into 6 groups of 5, each playing 4 matches against their other 4 group-mates, 2 home and 2 away. Top 2 teams in each group advance (12 advancing).

Final round (Fall 2025, 6 match dates): 3 groups of 4, playing double-round-robin home and away. Group winners qualify for the WC. The two best-ranked second-place finishers in the groups qualify for the Inter-Continental Playoff.

A bit unforgiving for our Costa Rican, Panamanian and Jamaican (etc) friends: 4 very-high-stakes games in June, at the end of Europe's club season with who-knows-what injury situation for their rosters. Screw up 2 and you're probably out, lose just 1 and there are scenarios where you're out.