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

[Leviathan.007]

When you went to a hotel to stay with your girlfriend, they can check if you are married or not, it says so right on your passport that you have different names, and if you have the same name you were allowed to stay in the same room, if you didn't had the same last name then you were asked if you were married or not (because you can be married and still have different names) and if you weren't, you weren't allowed to stay in the hotel.

This may not be the issue for some of the very top hotels there, but it was an issue for lower level ones for sure. People need to realize that Qatar forced their own tradition and culture and it was literally by force, literally detained when you carried any lgbt flag anywhere, they had ZERO respect towards peoples beliefs and they hide it behind the mask of "respect my culture" when they did it. Worst world cup host in its history.

Yes.. this is exactly what happened. If you stay with your girlfriend, then it will be treated as adultery in Qatar and some of the other Arab nations. And the punishment for adultery is death by beheading. In reality, this law is rarely implemented and usually they doesn't prosecute unmarried couples. But in the past, there were instances of people getting jailed for pregnancies outside the wedlock. Westerners are mostly unaware of these Qatari rules, and a few of them fell victim to the strict laws during the world cup. It soured the overall experience of participating in the world cup.

You are right but not completely because there if you go with your girlfriend in Muslim countries as an unmarried couple they can punish you and will even get you in trouble, there is even a chance to get jailed because of that.
But still even in these countries if you are rich enough you can go there with your girlfriend and none will even bother you.

[1715651603]

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[1715651603]

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[Sithara007]

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

[Strongkored]

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

You may be surprised by the fact that Venezuela has never even participated in a world cup, and is the only CONMEBOL member country that has never qualified to compete in a World Cup. Source
Maybe you are right that the reason they could not qualify for the qualification was that the rations given by FIFA were relatively small so the competition was very tight because there were already strong countries that had always been World Cup regulars such as Brazil and Argentina plus Uruguay and Colombia which were also quite strong. often passed the qualifying round, but in reality, Venezuela is not as strong as it seems, so if FIFA changes it is not a guarantee for Venezuela to also be able to qualify from the qualifying round and compete in this big tournament.

[Juggy777]

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

You may be surprised by the fact that Venezuela has never even participated in a world cup, and is the only CONMEBOL member country that has never qualified to compete in a World Cup. Source
Maybe you are right that the reason they could not qualify for the qualification was that the rations given by FIFA were relatively small so the competition was very tight because there were already strong countries that had always been World Cup regulars such as Brazil and Argentina plus Uruguay and Colombia which were also quite strong. often passed the qualifying round, but in reality, Venezuela is not as strong as it seems, so if FIFA changes it is not a guarantee for Venezuela to also be able to qualify from the qualifying round and compete in this big tournament.

@Stronkored this is indeed a surprising stat about Venezuela and to be honest I don’t expect FIFA to suddenly become considerate and try and accommodate them in the long term. Also when I search about this I see the results which shows that they’re a weak team and that’s why they failed to qualify so unless they can suddenly improve their performances I doubt that we will see them qualify in the future too.

[snipie]

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

World Cup never intended to be fair in reality. European countries are the best teams in the world and have the best players so they have more chances to qualify, yet sometimes top Nations like Italy might risk not playing there if they were not fit.
Asian, African, North Americans and Oceania teams performance are quite limited and their chances to succeed is limited.
South America, Conmebol, comes after UEFA and it is dominated by Brazil and Argentina most of the time. The other teams chances are quite the same.

[shogun47]

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

No Denmark isn't much worse than Bolivia or Venezuela. I actually think that it would be quite even if they played against each other. It seems that Venezuela never played at a World Cup. Check the Wikipedia but it says they withdrew sometimes and most of the time didn't qualify.

Europe has 55 starting teams and 16 direct qualification slots and no play-off slots. If you put that into perspective, it is still hard to qualify for European teams.

CONMEBOL has 6+1 slots for 10 starters!

[Hispo]

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

No Denmark isn't much worse than Bolivia or Venezuela. I actually think that it would be quite even if they played against each other. It seems that Venezuela never played at a World Cup. Check the Wikipedia but it says they withdrew sometimes and most of the time didn't qualify.

Europe has 55 starting teams and 16 direct qualification slots and no play-off slots. If you put that into perspective, it is still hard to qualify for European teams.

CONMEBOL has 6+1 slots for 10 starters!

As Venezuelan, I can tell you that here people does not have a much of hope for our team to go to a world cup any time soon. People here mostly lean towards supporting other South American teams when comes to the World Cup.

During the last one, one could see thousands of people here cheering for the Argentinian team during the France v. Argentina Match. Even at home one could heard the screams of excitement.

It i sad to say it but simply there is no enough investment here so we can push our national talent in the international landscape, there are very good players, though; however I am very sure they would rather to emigrate and eventually find opportunities in other selections and clubs once they move.

[Bobrox]

No Denmark isn't much worse than Bolivia or Venezuela. I actually think that it would be quite even if they played against each other. It seems that Venezuela never played at a World Cup. Check the Wikipedia but it says they withdrew sometimes and most of the time didn't qualify.

true, for America Latin national teams Venezuela never participants in World Cup and their achievement stuck on qualifying round trough difficult stopping Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. For next World Cup have added national teams from 32 become 48 and chance for all national teams never qualifying to World Cup get bigger chance and make debut playing in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Europe has 55 starting teams and 16 direct qualification slots and no play-off slots. If you put that into perspective, it is still hard to qualify for European teams.

CONMEBOL has 6+1 slots for 10 starters!

No doubt with Europe have many national teams slot qualify to World Cup, they have 16 national teams will play in FIFA World Cup 2026 and become continent with many national teams participants than Asian, African, and Latin America. BTW have details about each continent how many slots they have and I easily to check which one potential national teams will qualify to World Cup 2026.

[Leviathan.007]

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

No Denmark isn't much worse than Bolivia or Venezuela. I actually think that it would be quite even if they played against each other. It seems that Venezuela never played at a World Cup. Check the Wikipedia but it says they withdrew sometimes and most of the time didn't qualify.

Europe has 55 starting teams and 16 direct qualification slots and no play-off slots. If you put that into perspective, it is still hard to qualify for European teams.

CONMEBOL has 6+1 slots for 10 starters!

I think even 6+1 slots are a lot for CONMEBOL because there are not many strong teams and countries that have a chance to win the world cup and even teams like Venezuela if they play in the world cup they won't have any chance in this tournament. While even with 16 direct qualification slots, still there are many teams that should play in the world cup but they can't.

[shogun47]

I think even 6+1 slots are a lot for CONMEBOL because there are not many strong teams and countries that have a chance to win the world cup and even teams like Venezuela if they play in the world cup they won't have any chance in this tournament. While even with 16 direct qualification slots, still there are many teams that should play in the world cup but they can't.

We fully agree here. Only looking at the slots and then saying that Europe has an advantage is wrong. Calculating the coefficient of number of teams fighting each other per 1 slot shows a different picture. I hope I didn't get any of the numbers wrong, but when you check them out it becomes obvious that qualifying for the World Cup in the CONMEBOL are is much easier than qualifying for the World Cup in the European area.

[Sithara007]

We fully agree here. Only looking at the slots and then saying that Europe has an advantage is wrong. Calculating the coefficient of number of teams fighting each other per 1 slot shows a different picture. I hope I didn't get any of the numbers wrong, but when you check them out it becomes obvious that qualifying for the World Cup in the CONMEBOL are is much easier than qualifying for the World Cup in the European area.

LOL.. I really can't believe what I am seeing here. Are you guys really saying that CONMEBOL qualifiers are easier compared to the UEFA qualifiers? Seriously? CONMEBOL has 10 high quality teams. On the other hand, half of the teams in UEFA are low quality ones such as Liechtenstein and Andorra. In CONMEBOL, high quality teams like Venezuela and Bolivia almost never get a chance to qualify for the world cup, because the competition is so tough. And trust me, teams like Venezuela would sweep the floor with Danmark or Sweden, if they face one-to-one.

[Silberman]

It is a relatively strong group of 10 teams in general. And with 6 slots at the World Cup every team in the CONMEBOL qualification has a serious chance to make it to the tournament. Usually the slots were mostly taken by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and then it was close I think for the 4th, but with 6 teams the situation is quite different for all of the participants.

Bolivia's last World Cup qualification for example, it was in 1994. Now it is possible since they need to make it into the top 6 of that group stage right? Or are there any other play-offs after that group stage consisting of 10 teams?

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

Personally I find this proposal interesting, instead of simply giving more slots to each confederation and be done with it, it would have been interesting if so many spots were given in a special tournament in which all the countries which did not qualified played against each other, now it is true the level of such tournament will not be as high as the world cup, but with such a huge prize on the line most teams would do their utmost effort in order to place as high as possible and gain a place on the world cup.

[Litzki1990]

I feel bad about teams like Bolivia and Venezuela. They are much stronger if we compare them with teams such as Danmark and Canada. But they almost never get a chance to participate in the world cup because the number of slots allotted to CONMEBOL is quite limited. And this is why I have always argued that although the first set of 32 teams should be decided on the basis of continental qualifiers, the remaining 16 teams should come from a global qualifying tournament. BTW, when was the last time that Venezuela participated in the FIFA world cup?

World Cup never intended to be fair in reality. European countries are the best teams in the world and have the best players so they have more chances to qualify, yet sometimes top Nations like Italy might risk not playing there if they were not fit.
Asian, African, North Americans and Oceania teams performance are quite limited and their chances to succeed is limited.
South America, Conmebol, comes after UEFA and it is dominated by Brazil and Argentina most of the time. The other teams chances are quite the same.

European countries currently rule football. Among the non-European countries, Brazil and Argentina are two countries that perform well as non-European countries. In the last World Cup we saw European countries doing well as well as teams from Latin America and Africa doing well. In the last World Cup, Morocco became the first African country to play in the semi-finals of the football World Cup and another Latin American country, Argentina, became the world champion. Although these two countries were successful in World Cups outside Europe, the Europeans dominated throughout the tournament. The next World Cup is going to be different, Europe and America are going to host the next World Cup tournament together, where the Europeans have a good chance of doing well. Many are again saying that Brazil will do well in the 2026 World Cup as a Latin American country.

[Leviathan.007]

We fully agree here. Only looking at the slots and then saying that Europe has an advantage is wrong. Calculating the coefficient of number of teams fighting each other per 1 slot shows a different picture. I hope I didn't get any of the numbers wrong, but when you check them out it becomes obvious that qualifying for the World Cup in the CONMEBOL are is much easier than qualifying for the World Cup in the European area.

LOL.. I really can't believe what I am seeing here. Are you guys really saying that CONMEBOL qualifiers are easier compared to the UEFA qualifiers? Seriously? CONMEBOL has 10 high quality teams. On the other hand, half of the teams in UEFA are low quality ones such as Liechtenstein and Andorra. In CONMEBOL, high quality teams like Venezuela and Bolivia almost never get a chance to qualify for the world cup, because the competition is so tough. And trust me, teams like Venezuela would sweep the floor with Danmark or Sweden, if they face one-to-one.

Whenever we are talking about having more teams in the world cup as qualified teams, people will usually think about some confederations leaving fewer slots than others.
For example, you may think African countries should get more chances than what they currently have. But if you check the countries and teams who won the world cup in the past, you can understand that Europe got much more titles than other countries, also every time in the world cup there are more countries in Europe we were expecting to see them playing won world cup but they couldn't get qualified for this tournament.

[Sithara007]

Personally I find this proposal interesting, instead of simply giving more slots to each confederation and be done with it, it would have been interesting if so many spots were given in a special tournament in which all the countries which did not qualified played against each other, now it is true the level of such tournament will not be as high as the world cup, but with such a huge prize on the line most teams would do their utmost effort in order to place as high as possible and gain a place on the world cup.

My proposal is to have the 2022 format for qualifiers from different continental confederations. So that works out to:

Total spots available: 32 (From Qatar allocation, I gave one more to OFC, and reduced one from AFC).

AFC: 5
CAF: 5
CONCACAF: 4
CONMEBOL: 4
OFC: 1
UEFA: 13

Now, there should be a separate tournament, where the best teams that could not qualify will compete. I would suggest a total of 32 participants, and out of them 16 would qualify. So the proposal is like this:

Total spots: 16
Total participants: 32

Participants by confederation:

AFC: 8
CAFL: 8
CONCACAF: 4
CONMEBOL: 5
OFC: 1
UEFA: 6

I reached the numbers by subtracting the number of slots in 2022 World Cup by confederation from those in 2022 World Cup, and then multiplying this number by 2.

But one defect with this system is that even with this format, teams like Bolivia will never get a chance to qualify.

Let me know your feedback on this.

[bitgolden]

You may be surprised by the fact that Venezuela has never even participated in a world cup, and is the only CONMEBOL member country that has never qualified to compete in a World Cup. Source
Maybe you are right that the reason they could not qualify for the qualification was that the rations given by FIFA were relatively small so the competition was very tight because there were already strong countries that had always been World Cup regulars such as Brazil and Argentina plus Uruguay and Colombia which were also quite strong. often passed the qualifying round, but in reality, Venezuela is not as strong as it seems, so if FIFA changes it is not a guarantee for Venezuela to also be able to qualify from the qualifying round and compete in this big tournament.

I think that doesn't really feel like I would be shocked to learn that. I mean I have never heard of them in the football setting, I did hear about their name when it comes to talking about high inflation and poor nation, but I have never heard of them in the football setting.

Not entirely sure if there are many great Venezuelan players out there neither, but even if there were a few, they were never really that good as a team and never felt like I have seen them anywhere at all. In the end some teams are just not that great, it just doesn't feel like it would be anything that major and we should consider it to be as normal as it gets to be able to survive the situation and just make it happen as much as possible.

[shogun47]

We fully agree here. Only looking at the slots and then saying that Europe has an advantage is wrong. Calculating the coefficient of number of teams fighting each other per 1 slot shows a different picture. I hope I didn't get any of the numbers wrong, but when you check them out it becomes obvious that qualifying for the World Cup in the CONMEBOL are is much easier than qualifying for the World Cup in the European area.

LOL.. I really can't believe what I am seeing here. Are you guys really saying that CONMEBOL qualifiers are easier compared to the UEFA qualifiers? Seriously? CONMEBOL has 10 high quality teams. On the other hand, half of the teams in UEFA are low quality ones such as Liechtenstein and Andorra. In CONMEBOL, high quality teams like Venezuela and Bolivia almost never get a chance to qualify for the world cup, because the competition is so tough. And trust me, teams like Venezuela would sweep the floor with Danmark or Sweden, if they face one-to-one.

I can't prove it since there haven't been any serious games between Venezuela and Denmark or Sweden or Iceland, but I am pretty sure that they would meed on eye-level or, if you prefer, on a 60:40 level for Venezuela. Saying that Venezuela would crush them doesn't make sense because we have now long seen that the number of obvious underdogs is decreasing significantly. Yes Liechtenstein and Andorra are low quality and there are several more of those, but you are turning something upside down here.

You are saying that it is so hard for Venezuela to qualify because there are all these strong teams. Yes, it is, but their chance to qualify is probably still much higher than for Andorra or Liechtenstein. Every association has a core group that usually takes the spots. Yet there are times when a team like Italy fails.

[nullama]

~snip~
LOL.. I really can't believe what I am seeing here. Are you guys really saying that CONMEBOL qualifiers are easier compared to the UEFA qualifiers? Seriously? CONMEBOL has 10 high quality teams. On the other hand, half of the teams in UEFA are low quality ones such as Liechtenstein and Andorra. In CONMEBOL, high quality teams like Venezuela and Bolivia almost never get a chance to qualify for the world cup, because the competition is so tough. And trust me, teams like Venezuela would sweep the floor with Danmark or Sweden, if they face one-to-one.

I'm not too sure about that. In a Venezuela vs Denmark or Sweden match, I think it would be a good game, and it could go either way. San Marino for example, yes, they are not very good, but those Scandinavian teams are quite alright.

I do agree that CONMEBOL has a more difficult qualification process though.

[Leviathan.007]

You may be surprised by the fact that Venezuela has never even participated in a world cup, and is the only CONMEBOL member country that has never qualified to compete in a World Cup. Source
Maybe you are right that the reason they could not qualify for the qualification was that the rations given by FIFA were relatively small so the competition was very tight because there were already strong countries that had always been World Cup regulars such as Brazil and Argentina plus Uruguay and Colombia which were also quite strong. often passed the qualifying round, but in reality, Venezuela is not as strong as it seems, so if FIFA changes it is not a guarantee for Venezuela to also be able to qualify from the qualifying round and compete in this big tournament.

I think that doesn't really feel like I would be shocked to learn that. I mean I have never heard of them in the football setting, I did hear about their name when it comes to talking about high inflation and poor nation, but I have never heard of them in the football setting.

Not entirely sure if there are many great Venezuelan players out there neither, but even if there were a few, they were never really that good as a team and never felt like I have seen them anywhere at all. In the end some teams are just not that great, it just doesn't feel like it would be anything that major and we should consider it to be as normal as it gets to be able to survive the situation and just make it happen as much as possible.

I'm not going to say Venezuela couldn't get qualified because it didn't have a good financial situation and they couldn't spend money like some other countries for their football team, but the fact about Venezuela is we can't expect too much from them because have no potential and because of the bad management situation in their country and football teams, they usually can't get many achievements and that's why it's not surprising for them to not be in the world cup.

[Webetcoins]

Whenever we are talking about having more teams in the world cup as qualified teams, people will usually think about some confederations leaving fewer slots than others.
For example, you may think African countries should get more chances than what they currently have. But if you check the countries and teams who won the world cup in the past, you can understand that Europe got much more titles than other countries, also every time in the world cup there are more countries in Europe we were expecting to see them playing won world cup but they couldn't get qualified for this tournament.

I think it's understandable, think about it in team rankings way and you will realize that it's not really that shocking, we talk about something that will be unique in that aspect and should be considered a good deal one way or another.

I get it, not everyone thinks the same way and some people want equality on this, but the reality is that if we check the rankings of the teams then we will see that most of them at the top are European, and even though there are some good teams from other continents, the overall continent as a Europe has more better teams than any other continent. This makes it easier to decide this and make a clear choice. Hopefully people will realize this and can see world cup without too much complaint.