FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread

[Webetcoins]

There are many more countries in Asia and that's why I think they should get more tickets for the World Cup. However they are not strong like the European teams and maybe that's why FIFA decided to give them more chances and more tickets, otherwise, I think Asia could get more slots. However I think many of the top Asian teams like South Korea, Japan, and Iran will not surprise us after being in the 2026 World Cup but after the development they had in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, I think this time we are going to see more, and better Arabian countries in the 2026 World Cup.  

I don't know the reason why Europe provides more slots for FIFA World Cup finals than the rest of the other continents even when Europe isn't the biggest continent neither the second biggest continent of the world. To me, I think it's not fair for Asian and African continents. Since it's called the World Cup, I think every continent should have the same number of slots especially or something slightly different.
We understand that the European nations are better in terms of quality football but I feel the other continents can as well do better of they get the chance like their European counterparts. In the last edition of the FIFA World Cup, we saw an African team Morocco reach the semi finals of the competition which was the first in the history of the competition. The difference in number of slots between European nations and other continents is just too big if you ask me and I wish FIFA can review and do something about it.

For me this is good joke as you don't know why Europeans provided more slots in FIFA World Cup because look like you have no idea how things are working around, and you are doing things just by own mind with never check about the competitiveness of this region in soccer and their huge investments which are not paying them good return they are having one of the best and strongest system in soccer which is helping them, and they are also having things which are helpful for them in all aspects here in Asia just personal egos and hate is doing things badly down.

In last few years, we are having good development in African region which is helpful for the game and them with this all we can expect better things even still it's not easy because they need more work to do for the game and development of the players which are already doing impressive work and having their mark into UEFA region which is impressive for them and their all system.

[Oneandpure]

Asia is one of the most populated continent with having very interesting geopolitics, but sadly they are never been had anything for the development of this game soccer which is really sad for the billions of peoples those are living here and watching soccer without their own hero's and this all is happening just because of having not strong central sports organization which bring some strict rules like we have in UEFA and other continents which are helping them for development even now African region is having amazing development, and they are doing impressive work for this game and players development.

We have China and India which both are having just one or two appearances in FIFA World Cup which is matter of shame and few countries which are doing good but mostly are not working for the domestic leagues which are also important for the development of the game with recently we have huge investments from Qatar and Saudi Arab, but these are also not helpful for the game they are doing these things for the own interest I have strong feeling this is never been easy to have good development for this game in this region in near future it's going to take time like decades.

I come from Asia and all your opinion trues how difficult reach the higher level in FIFA World Cup every edition moment, except on most controversial FIFA World Cup 2002 when South Korea under Guus Hiddink as manager success qualifying until semifinal round and next edition never see yet the Asian national team reach to semifinal or final phase. I think the development of Asian teams not easy because dominance of their players only existing with their domestic league, difference how Argentina achievement last edition world cup success become the winner most of them played with top European teams.

Its difficult if Asian players existing in their domestic league only will reach higher level in World Cup every edition moment, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems still weakness national team when playing in World Cup and most highest their achievement qualified to 16 of round only.

[Leviathan.007]

Asia is one of the most populated continent with having very interesting geopolitics, but sadly they are never been had anything for the development of this game soccer which is really sad for the billions of peoples those are living here and watching soccer without their own hero's and this all is happening just because of having not strong central sports organization which bring some strict rules like we have in UEFA and other continents which are helping them for development even now African region is having amazing development, and they are doing impressive work for this game and players development.

We have China and India which both are having just one or two appearances in FIFA World Cup which is matter of shame and few countries which are doing good but mostly are not working for the domestic leagues which are also important for the development of the game with recently we have huge investments from Qatar and Saudi Arab, but these are also not helpful for the game they are doing these things for the own interest I have strong feeling this is never been easy to have good development for this game in this region in near future it's going to take time like decades.

I come from Asia and all your opinion trues how difficult reach the higher level in FIFA World Cup every edition moment, except on most controversial FIFA World Cup 2002 when South Korea under Guus Hiddink as manager success qualifying until semifinal round and next edition never see yet the Asian national team reach to semifinal or final phase. I think the development of Asian teams not easy because dominance of their players only existing with their domestic league, difference how Argentina achievement last edition world cup success become the winner most of them played with top European teams.

Its difficult if Asian players existing in their domestic league only will reach higher level in World Cup every edition moment, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems still weakness national team when playing in World Cup and most highest their achievement qualified to 16 of round only.

Then you know and you have more information about the Asian countries. Asian countries were mostly trying to hire the coaches from the European countries to develop their teams and get improve to have better performance in the next season. For example, you mentioned South Korea when they were using Guus Hiddink as their coach and we saw the amazing results from this team.
Now I think the Arabian countries are even investing and trying harder than before which means maybe we can see the teams like Saudi Arabia have better performance in the 2026 World Cup.

[tygeade]

Italian legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti which is going to end his contract in 2026 could be 66 years old at the end of this contract and as he is already announced this is going to be his last job after this he loves to be stayed as retired which is not bad at all after having long list of successes which he achieves during his coaching career with no one having any hope he could be gone to Brazil for having any job because things are not ideal for working in this country with corrupt system is going to be collapsed which will bring more development ends, and we will have this team at their lowest level if they are not going to have fixed their problems.

It's almost more than two decades they are having no win which is surely going to be terrible with things are going more down day by day, and we are having no development for the better things here if this will be continued for some more time then surely we will be having another collapse.

He is too young to retire if you ask me, he does look older than how old he is, dude is 64 years old and looks ten years older than my father who is at the same age, feels like he is retiring way too early. If he stays at Real Madrid for another 10 years then I would understand, but if he plans on retiring at 66 years old as a manager, I feel that is way too early for such a manager to retire, feels like he should probably consider retiring a bit later. That is of course not something I would assume would be that easy.

It is going to be quite difficult for him to stop considering he will probably get bored after a while and he will have offers endlessly all the time from clubs all around the world, so I do not think that he will retire.

[Rampagoe004]

Its difficult if Asian players existing in their domestic league only will reach higher level in World Cup every edition moment, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems still weakness national team when playing in World Cup and most highest their achievement qualified to 16 of round only.

In fact, there are several Asian players who play in Europe's top leagues, such as most South Korean and Japanese players. But there are still many of their players who come from domestic leagues at different levels. But if you look at the history of the world cup I think Asia and Africa are at the same level even though Africa looks better. If we ignore South Korea, which managed to qualify for the semifinals with controversy, then the Asian teams have only managed to reach the last 16 and none have yet made it through to the semifinals. From what I read it says Morocco was the first African country to make it to the semifinals and they had no controversy.

[Marvell1]

snip

When referring to the FIFA rankings as of February 4, China is in 88th position while India is in 121st position. In terms of population, these two countries are indeed recorded as countries with the highest population levels in the world, but specifically in football, China is still better than India. Maybe because each country has its own favorite sport, such as India being more inclined towards cricket, so the prestige of football in that country fairly low. Some time ago China made a breakthrough to make their football better, by building a league and recruiting several top European players. Almost the same as what Saudi is currently doing, but overall China has not been able to record significant achievements.

To promote and attract interest in football, appointing a country as organizer of the World Cup is one of the best solutions, because the World Cup event can attract the attention of the wider community. Currently, countries in the Asian region that are seriously showing interest in the development of football are countries in the Arab region, such as Saudi and Qatar. These two countries have made quite large investments to advance their local football, of course this can be an example for other countries.

Yes, I agree that a huge funding is needed from these teams to actually make football very popular in their country. In my understanding football is still a very popular sport in these countries. It's just that the kids love to play football. But there is no incentive for them to actually take football as their profession. In India, cricket is literally the better sport to play. And if you are selected to play in the IPL, you do not have to worry about anything anymore. China is definitely a lot better than India in football. But probably they are just not that worried about getting better in football. Or maybe they cannot afford to spend so much money like the Saudis or the Qataris.

[SATWAT]

snip

When referring to the FIFA rankings as of February 4, China is in 88th position while India is in 121st position. In terms of population, these two countries are indeed recorded as countries with the highest population levels in the world, but specifically in football, China is still better than India. Maybe because each country has its own favorite sport, such as India being more inclined towards cricket, so the prestige of football in that country fairly low. Some time ago China made a breakthrough to make their football better, by building a league and recruiting several top European players. Almost the same as what Saudi is currently doing, but overall China has not been able to record significant achievements.

To promote and attract interest in football, appointing a country as organizer of the World Cup is one of the best solutions, because the World Cup event can attract the attention of the wider community. Currently, countries in the Asian region that are seriously showing interest in the development of football are countries in the Arab region, such as Saudi and Qatar. These two countries have made quite large investments to advance their local football, of course this can be an example for other countries.

Yes, I agree that a huge funding is needed from these teams to actually make football very popular in their country. In my understanding football is still a very popular sport in these countries. It's just that the kids love to play football. But there is no incentive for them to actually take football as their profession. In India, cricket is literally the better sport to play. And if you are selected to play in the IPL, you do not have to worry about anything anymore. China is definitely a lot better than India in football. But probably they are just not that worried about getting better in football. Or maybe they cannot afford to spend so much money like the Saudis or the Qataris.

Only funding is not ok these countries needed to have something extraordinary if they want to compete with the biggest countries even I have been feeling these both countries are having good potential in talent and in funding as well but still this need strong management and solid strategy which will bring good system, and then they will be able to create good number of jobs as well which will help them and having sponsors and taking huge funding is never been issue as they are having the good number of big companies which are looking for doing something in these countries.
China doing good work with India need some central command which help them and also their media which is bounded by cricket it's also to work on this which will bring youngsters in this game and surely this all will be give them good return of their investment I agreed as these are not able to invest like Qataris and Saudis.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Middle east has always been a great force in football in AFC region. Saudi Arabia actually is in the top position in reaching finals of Asia cup tied with South Korea but having more titles that South Korea which is again the 2nd position tied with Iran. Iran is a much older footballing nation with it's population totally crazy about football. Qatar too is not a new team but their performance has increased only recently after huge state investment.
AFCs have 8 slots for the 2026 world cup and currently the AFCs top teams are represented by Japan, South Korea and Australia in the east and Saudi, Iran, Iraq and Qatar in the middle east.  They'd most probably be allocated the slots, the remaining one could be UAE.

Well, I personally see these teams as very strong. Saudi Arabia is a team that surprised me a lot in Qatar. The truth is that they beat the world champions and that is something that not everyone does. It would have been easy if Saudi Arabia had Maintained the level they played against Argentina, at least they would have reached the semi-finals. But of course, in football, despite everything, experience plays a very important role and that is something they don't have in the World Cup. We have all seen that Arab teams reach a certain point and don't go beyond that. I am very excited about the World Cup in the United States because we will see teams from all continents demonstrating an impressive level of football.

[Leviathan.007]

Middle east has always been a great force in football in AFC region. Saudi Arabia actually is in the top position in reaching finals of Asia cup tied with South Korea but having more titles that South Korea which is again the 2nd position tied with Iran. Iran is a much older footballing nation with it's population totally crazy about football. Qatar too is not a new team but their performance has increased only recently after huge state investment.
AFCs have 8 slots for the 2026 world cup and currently the AFCs top teams are represented by Japan, South Korea and Australia in the east and Saudi, Iran, Iraq and Qatar in the middle east.  They'd most probably be allocated the slots, the remaining one could be UAE.

Well, I personally see these teams as very strong. Saudi Arabia is a team that surprised me a lot in Qatar. The truth is that they beat the world champions and that is something that not everyone does. It would have been easy if Saudi Arabia had Maintained the level they played against Argentina, at least they would have reached the semi-finals. But of course, in football, despite everything, experience plays a very important role and that is something they don't have in the World Cup. We have all seen that Arab teams reach a certain point and don't go beyond that. I am very excited about the World Cup in the United States because we will see teams from all continents demonstrating an impressive level of football.

Talking about Asia, they have many good players there, for example, you said about Iran and Iraq, there are many talented players there but just like Brazil, they don't pay attention to these talents while in some other countries like South Korea and Japan, they tried much more to have better coaches and develop their teams.
On the other hand, some Arabian teams like Saudi Arabia and UAE invested too much money in their team and they even bought foreign players and gave them citizenship to play for them in Qatar but this still couldn't help them a lot.
I guess the only achievement for the Asian team in the World Cup was in the 2002 World Cup when they were in the semi-final game.

[Rampagoe004]

Talking about Asia, they have many good players there, for example, you said about Iran and Iraq, there are many talented players there but just like Brazil, they don't pay attention to these talents while in some other countries like South Korea and Japan, they tried much more to have better coaches and develop their teams.
On the other hand, some Arabian teams like Saudi Arabia and UAE invested too much money in their team and they even bought foreign players and gave them citizenship to play for them in Qatar but this still couldn't help them a lot.
I guess the only achievement for the Asian team in the World Cup was in the 2002 World Cup when they were in the semi-final game.

I also see that Asian teams have succeeded in developing well and they will no longer just be dark horses in the 2026 World Cup. Several Asian countries use coaches from Europe and several countries such as Arab countries are investing heavily in the league to ensure competition. become more competitive.

South Korea made it to the semifinals of the 2002 world cup. But it was a controversial semifinal and there were rumors that the then FIFA president Sepp Blatter was involved in a scandal with the country hosting the world cup so that South Korea qualified for the semifinals. At least for me, no Asian team has managed to qualify for the semifinals. Maybe we will see it at the 2026 world cup.

[fuguebtc]

Italian legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti which is going to end his contract in 2026 could be 66 years old at the end of this contract and as he is already announced this is going to be his last job after this he loves to be stayed as retired which is not bad at all after having long list of successes which he achieves during his coaching career with no one having any hope he could be gone to Brazil for having any job because things are not ideal for working in this country with corrupt system is going to be collapsed which will bring more development ends, and we will have this team at their lowest level if they are not going to have fixed their problems.

It's almost more than two decades they are having no win which is surely going to be terrible with things are going more down day by day, and we are having no development for the better things here if this will be continued for some more time then surely we will be having another collapse.

He is too young to retire if you ask me, he does look older than how old he is, dude is 64 years old and looks ten years older than my father who is at the same age, feels like he is retiring way too early. If he stays at Real Madrid for another 10 years then I would understand, but if he plans on retiring at 66 years old as a manager, I feel that is way too early for such a manager to retire, feels like he should probably consider retiring a bit later. That is of course not something I would assume would be that easy.

It is going to be quite difficult for him to stop considering he will probably get bored after a while and he will have offers endlessly all the time from clubs all around the world, so I do not think that he will retire.

A reason why he looks a lot older than he is, is because of his habit of smoking. My guy loves to smoke. Even at the early stages office managerial career, You actually smoke in the field. It is only after FIFA said that you cannot be smoking when a match is going on or is broadcasted, that he stopped smoking in the field and now he chews gum. If he did not smoke or even had given up smoking 10 years ago, he would have looked more younger. But anyway, let's talk about his retirement.

If he is able to win the Champions League final, it is not going to be a bad moment to retire. The guy has actually achieved a lot in his career. So we should not have any problems if he actually wants to retire. We also have to remember that even though he is not that old, he is not that young as well. I understand that a lot of coaches are older than him and still coaching. But at the end of the day, it is up to him if he wants to retire or not. and whatever his decision is, we should respect his decision.

[mv1986]

Talking about Asia, they have many good players there, for example, you said about Iran and Iraq, there are many talented players there but just like Brazil, they don't pay attention to these talents while in some other countries like South Korea and Japan, they tried much more to have better coaches and develop their teams.
On the other hand, some Arabian teams like Saudi Arabia and UAE invested too much money in their team and they even bought foreign players and gave them citizenship to play for them in Qatar but this still couldn't help them a lot.
I guess the only achievement for the Asian team in the World Cup was in the 2002 World Cup when they were in the semi-final game.

I also see that Asian teams have succeeded in developing well and they will no longer just be dark horses in the 2026 World Cup. Several Asian countries use coaches from Europe and several countries such as Arab countries are investing heavily in the league to ensure competition. become more competitive.

South Korea made it to the semifinals of the 2002 world cup. But it was a controversial semifinal and there were rumors that the then FIFA president Sepp Blatter was involved in a scandal with the country hosting the world cup so that South Korea qualified for the semifinals. At least for me, no Asian team has managed to qualify for the semifinals. Maybe we will see it at the 2026 world cup.

But it is still not  like they would play an important role at the World Cup. Who are the most relevant candidates? It is maybe Japan, South Korea, but any other team doesn't really have a chance to make it far in the World Cup let alone winning it. It's more that some of them might be averagely competitive, but not someone to be taken seriously to take it all the way to the final.

But in this case even Brazil might be a candidate that can't be counted into the inner circle of favorites. Interesting times ahead though and for now we'll see what the European Championship brings first.

[Docnaster]

Its difficult if Asian players existing in their domestic league only will reach higher level in World Cup every edition moment, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems still weakness national team when playing in World Cup and most highest their achievement qualified to 16 of round only.

In fact, there are several Asian players who play in Europe's top leagues, such as most South Korean and Japanese players. But there are still many of their players who come from domestic leagues at different levels. But if you look at the history of the world cup I think Asia and Africa are at the same level even though Africa looks better. If we ignore South Korea, which managed to qualify for the semifinals with controversy, then the Asian teams have only managed to reach the last 16 and none have yet made it through to the semifinals. From what I read it says Morocco was the first African country to make it to the semifinals and they had no controversy.

The truth is that the quality of football in most Asian countries is too low to compare to that of their European counterparts and that's why European teams tends to easily beat Asian teams whenever they meet each other. Many Asian players now plays football in the top league in Europe but the majority of players who make up their respective national teams are mostly locally based players which is why their teams style of play is always lesser than their European counterparts.
Unlike Asia, some of the top African national teams are very strong and have the needed quality of players to match their European counterparts but because of poor management if the African national teams, they're always not matching with their European counterparts. In the last FIFA World Cup tournament,  an African managed to reach the semi final of the competition which was the first in the history of the competition

[Rampagoe004]

The truth is that the quality of football in most Asian countries is too low to compare to that of their European counterparts and that's why European teams tends to easily beat Asian teams whenever they meet each other. Many Asian players now plays football in the top league in Europe but the majority of players who make up their respective national teams are mostly locally based players which is why their teams style of play is always lesser than their European counterparts.

I agree with you. The quality of Asian players playing in local leagues is lower than European teams. But currently I see that several Asian leagues such as the SPL have started trying to bring in European stars even though they are still veteran players. I think the presence of players who play in European leagues will also help improve the level of Asian teams. They can learn tactics and details about European football. Even though we still can't match the European level, I am sure that in the next few years there will be an Asian team that can go further in the world cup.