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

[Hispo]

It would makes sense that the aging population of Japan is not helping them to get closer to the world cup, but besides of that, I think there are also other factors that could be minimizing their possibilities.

If I had to guess, I would say the Japanese culture towards football is very different from what we see in countries that are considered to be the best ones and with the best performances. In Latin America, the football is a passion which starts at a very young age, here you can see children and teens not only watching the matches and following their favorite teams, but also partaking in their own matches, practicing during years and years, not matter whether they come from a middle-class family or a low-class family, they all do it and their training can be intensive.

Those who become professionals are generally the best of the best.

in Japan, I doubt it is like here. So the career path in that country does not pick the best talents among the people.

I think "space" is also another problem as well. In my nation almost everywhere, kids play football, because they have the space for it, even if they can't find a ball to play, they will make a ball out of anything they could find and they play nevertheless, because they have that wide space to run around, which helps them fall in love with the game from a young age.

On the other hand, Japan is one of the most crowded nations in the world, I assume there could be some free space away from the crowded places, but how are you going to get Japanese kids in Tokyo to fall in love with football when they can't even play it on the streets easily? That is the main issue if you ask me.

It may also negatively influence but knowing how good the Japanese people to solve problems is, I would have expected them to build a lot of football places on the roofs of buildings or indoors, so they can play, practice and fall in love with the game.

It must be something like, the view on football the average Japanese family has. In Latin America, if a child starts practicing football and keeps it until the beginning of their adulthood, it is not frown upon. On the other hand , I have gotten the impression that the Japanese parents expect their children to go for a more orthodox career, like law, medicine, biology, economics...

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[shogun47]

A joint South American world cup would be amazing to celebrate the centenary of the world cup.

I hope they actually end up winning, that would be very fitting.

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

[nullama]

~snip~
@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

Absolutely.

There's no way a country that is hosting the world cup won't participate in it. They are putting a lot of money into the tournament so of course they're going to be there.

That was the only way Qatar was able to play at the World Cup actually.

[Sithara007]

Absolutely.

There's no way a country that is hosting the world cup won't participate in it. They are putting a lot of money into the tournament so of course they're going to be there.

That was the only way Qatar was able to play at the World Cup actually.

I never said anything against Qatar auto-qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. It is just one team, and I guess they deserve a slot after spending close to $300 billion for the world cup. But in 2026, the tournament will be hosted by a total of 3 countries. Giving automatic slots to all the three countries will reduce the chances of others in the CONCACAF Confederation. And similarly, 4 for the 2030 World Cup sounds absurd for me. It will reduce the chances of other teams to almost zero. IMO, there should be a playoff between the four teams, and only two among them should automatically qualify.

[mm2543363580]

Absolutely.

There's no way a country that is hosting the world cup won't participate in it. They are putting a lot of money into the tournament so of course they're going to be there.

That was the only way Qatar was able to play at the World Cup actually.

I never said anything against Qatar auto-qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. It is just one team, and I guess they deserve a slot after spending close to $300 billion for the world cup. But in 2026, the tournament will be hosted by a total of 3 countries. Giving automatic slots to all the three countries will reduce the chances of others in the CONCACAF Confederation. And similarly, 4 for the 2030 World Cup sounds absurd for me. It will reduce the chances of other teams to almost zero. IMO, there should be a playoff between the four teams, and only two among them should automatically qualify.

There are going to be 48 teams in fifa 2026 and 3 teams will be from host countries Canada, Mexico,  USA  that's OK I guess and these teams will perform how they performed in last fifa so that's fair I guess and no one will be treated unfairly.
https://twitter.com/FIFAWorldCup/status/1537552949722890241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1537552949722890241%7Ctwgr%5Ebf434a1fb7fac0b5fa877dcedb1f2b765af99223%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fifa.com%2Ffifaplus%2Fen%2Farticles%2Ffifa-unveils-stellar-line-up-of-fifa-world-cup-2026-tm-host-cities

[Sithara007]

There are going to be 48 teams in fifa 2026 and 3 teams will be from host countries Canada, Mexico,  USA  that's OK I guess and these teams will perform how they performed in last fifa so that's fair I guess and no one will be treated unfairly.

You don't get it. Let's take the example of 2030 FIFA World Cup. In case the combined bid from Argentina-Uruguay-Chile-Paraguay gets approved, all of these nations will get automatic qualification to the main tournament. But the problem here is that these 4 slots will be reduced from CONMEBOL qualifiers. So originally 6 teams were supposed to qualify from the CONMEBOL tournament, and it will get reduced to 2. Given the fact that they have some very strong teams such as Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, qualifying will be extremely difficult for the other teams.

[Leviathan.007]

A joint South American world cup would be amazing to celebrate the centenary of the world cup.

I hope they actually end up winning, that would be very fitting.

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

As we saw in the previous world cup, the host got qualified for the tournament without playing any games or having any advantage over the other teams, just like we saw in the previous world cup. All I want to say is that the rule should be changed because if we have four teams qualified for the world cup who don't deserve it, there could be other teams that are stronger and they deserve a place in the world cup just as the host did.

[swogerino]

A joint South American world cup would be amazing to celebrate the centenary of the world cup.

I hope they actually end up winning, that would be very fitting.

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

As we saw in the previous world cup, the host got qualified for the tournament without playing any games or having any advantage over the other teams, just like we saw in the previous world cup. All I want to say is that the rule should be changed because if we have four teams qualified for the world cup who don't deserve it, there could be other teams that are stronger and they deserve a place in the world cup just as the host did.

Both teams who will auto qualify this time are much stronger than Qatar was as they were the weakest team of the whole tournament during this last World Cup that they hosted.It is a completely different things now,as we saw USA and Mexico to do relatively well in this last tournament,while Canada did not show a great performance compared to other big teams but they surely had improved themselves a lot from the last time I saw them in an international competition like the World Cup is.

So most likely they would have all qualified again even if they were not the hosts as we saw that they did just that in this last World Cup.

[Zlantann]

There’s no cause to worry in this kinda of situation. I think FIFA will look to expand the of the host continent by providing them more slots at the play offs. Although if we look at this four countries they have been the ones that usually qualifies in almost every edition. So having other countries to go through qualification with is exception of one is likely to be more biased than offering them slot.

I don't agree with your argument. Out of the 4 countries mentioned here (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay), only two managed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. And for the 2030 edition, the 4 slots will be reduced from the quota for CONMEBOL, which means that only two countries (including Brazil) will be able to qualify from CONMEBOL qualifiers. In my opinion, this is very unfair for the other teams such as Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Since Brazil is almost certain to qualify, there is going to be fierce competition for the sole remaining slot.

FIFA cannot deny any host country the automatic qualification rights regardless of their number because they are sacrificing many things as hosts. But World Cup host rights should be restricted to just one nation. Many nations co-hosting the competition reduces the chances of others getting slots. Only countries that can comfortably host the tournament should be given the opportunity to grab the hosting right. Countries that wish to co-host shouldn't be more than two to enable others compete for qualification. The financial and infrastructural development of every nation bidding for the slot should be considered to avoid this co-hosting issues.

[Bushdark]

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

There’s no cause to worry in this kinda of situation. I think FIFA will look to expand the of the host continent by providing them more slots at the play offs. Although if we look at this four countries they have been the ones that usually qualifies in almost every edition. So having other countries to go through qualification with is exception of one is likely to be more biased than offering them slot.

you this is the first time FIFA is going to merge two countries together to host the world 6whjch is very surprising to us. You we don't know there intention why this would be happening in time soon but I am just trying to visualize how the mat he's is going to be and then going from Mexico to the United States to watch the live matches.
There is still enough time for FIFA to amend this or adjust thiw but to me it's not going to be easy for us especially that would like to be there live to match most of the matches. We still look forward to the planning team for the next world cup to make the game very interesting.

[shogun47]

A joint South American world cup would be amazing to celebrate the centenary of the world cup.

I hope they actually end up winning, that would be very fitting.

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

As we saw in the previous world cup, the host got qualified for the tournament without playing any games or having any advantage over the other teams, just like we saw in the previous world cup. All I want to say is that the rule should be changed because if we have four teams qualified for the world cup who don't deserve it, there could be other teams that are stronger and they deserve a place in the world cup just as the host did.

It is not about being stronger, it is about the idea that the privilege to host a World Cup should engage the hosting nation as much as possible as it is what I said it is: a privilege. This way some fairness can be preserved for as long as the right to host the World Cup isn't won due to corruption. The idea is to carry global sports events into countries all around the world, allowing every continent to participate not only as a sports team, but as a host who gets the possibility to connect with people from all over the world through their hospitality. The main concept behind it is to maintain sports as an element of inclusion among different nations.

[rahmad2nd]

Both teams who will auto qualify this time are much stronger than Qatar was as they were the weakest team of the whole tournament during this last World Cup that they hosted.It is a completely different things now,as we saw USA and Mexico to do relatively well in this last tournament,while Canada did not show a great performance compared to other big teams but they surely had improved themselves a lot from the last time I saw them in an international competition like the World Cup is.

So most likely they would have all qualified again even if they were not the hosts as we saw that they did just that in this last World Cup.

I am interested in discussing Canada. yes, since Canada is one of the hosts in the 2026 world cup, they will automatically qualify. if, we are referring to Canada's performance at the Qatar 2022 world cup. to be honest, what the Canadian squad displayed was different from what they had shown in previous tournaments. systemically, Canada is far more highly developed. unfortunately, they don't have a player they can really count on up front.

So, I'm assuming. because Canada is one of the hosts of the World Cup later. the Canadian federation will begin to pay more attention to its football developments. meaning, Canada has the potential to become a stronger team than they showed at the 2026 world cup. because when they seriously make big changes, I'm quite optimistic we will see the impact in the 2026 world cup later.

[RealMalatesta]

FIFA cannot deny any host country the automatic qualification rights regardless of their number because they are sacrificing many things as hosts. But World Cup host rights should be restricted to just one nation. Many nations co-hosting the competition reduces the chances of others getting slots. Only countries that can comfortably host the tournament should be given the opportunity to grab the hosting right. Countries that wish to co-host shouldn't be more than two to enable others compete for qualification. The financial and infrastructural development of every nation bidding for the slot should be considered to avoid this co-hosting issues.

I feel like that could be a good idea if we are talking about a nation with both football culture and also a lot of money, but if they do not have them both then they need to share it. If you bring Canada and USA and Mexico all together, that would still not be one Wembley stadium filled with Englishmen, that's why it is not possible for just picking one nation in that case.

However, they want to have both a bit of change time to time, and also want to have some sort of football culture as well right? Well, aside from Qatar obviously, that was just marketing and nothing more. I believe that we shouldn't be really worried about this three nations acting as one.

[Oneandpure]

I dislike with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United because this edition have three co-hosts and cut off two national team slot participants left, no doubt with added participants from 32 become 48 national team and three co-hosts have 45 national team will get place for participating in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Still controversy with added participants team in FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United and have many matches later but most advantage with commercial is FIFA, they will earn much commission from broadcast and advertising with have many matches than usually still adopt 32 national team participants.

[Leviathan.007]

I dislike with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United because this edition have three co-hosts and cut off two national team slot participants left, no doubt with added participants from 32 become 48 national team and three co-hosts have 45 national team will get place for participating in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Still controversy with added participants team in FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United and have many matches later but most advantage with commercial is FIFA, they will earn much commission from broadcast and advertising with have many matches than usually still adopt 32 national team participants.

As far as I am concerned, if there will be three countries hosting the world cup, I believe that they should not get qualified all of them or at least one team should qualify for the tournament because this will allow other possible participants to get a chance to participate. It is my sincere hope that they will change the rules about getting auto-qualified for every other world cup after this soon so that 45 real teams can qualify instead of 48 teams.

[nullama]

I dislike with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United because this edition have three co-hosts and cut off two national team slot participants left, no doubt with added participants from 32 become 48 national team and three co-hosts have 45 national team will get place for participating in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Still controversy with added participants team in FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United and have many matches later but most advantage with commercial is FIFA, they will earn much commission from broadcast and advertising with have many matches than usually still adopt 32 national team participants.

Maybe this is the start of a new era of multi-country-hosted world cups. Already we have 3 for the next one and there's talks about having 4 in the 2030 one in South America.

Given that so many teams will be able to qualify, it's not crazy to qualify immediately more than one host.

We'll have to see what happens.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Well, those were golden times, for that year it had not been born yet, but the way they describe it sounds like it was a very good football demonstration, now football is going in another direction, I don't know, but I think that before football had In another sense, it was more focused on team plays, now there are many stars, each country develops many players who are almost geniuses and the countries that have been powers since the start of the World Cup have always had the same relevance, we cannot Denying that some teams have also become powerful, football in general has improved, and that is remarkable.

Yes, you remembered a subject that was not previously discussed.
I also believe that football these days has changed compared to football in the past.
Nowadays, it is not just football that is involved, but there are other aspects that are also used, for example publicity/merchandising, several top players, from time to time appear on TV, participating in some commercial of products or other things like that.

Unlike football in the past, where basically the main objective is become a winner.

Every World Cup we see something new. In this world cup as we got to see the world cup trophy in the hands of the best Lionel Messi in history, it is very lucky for our generation. We expect to see more innovations in the next World Cup, and everyone wants the new team to make a big splash and take home the next World Cup.

I have no doubt, in the next World Cup we will have several tools and improved technology! Especially when it comes to an extremely significant and important event that is the World Cup.

Oh, I almost forget ... get ready guys, because I'm sure that several teams will be prepared for the next World Cup, and I have no doubt that some small and unknown teams will surprise many people!

There you are absolutely right, personally I am very excited that my country's team can go to a World Cup, we have never been to a World Cup and that is quite painful, of course what happens is that the CONMEBOL tie is another thing, facing Brazil, Argentina are safe places, it is very difficult to dethrone them because each time those countries bring out players with a great class and category, it is as if all the stars were concentrated there, of course there are many players from other countries South America who are good but cannot see themselves in a World Cup because their team does not help them, it is very difficult for them, because soccer is a game of 11, not 1.

[Vaskiy]

I dislike with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United because this edition have three co-hosts and cut off two national team slot participants left, no doubt with added participants from 32 become 48 national team and three co-hosts have 45 national team will get place for participating in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Still controversy with added participants team in FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United and have many matches later but most advantage with commercial is FIFA, they will earn much commission from broadcast and advertising with have many matches than usually still adopt 32 national team participants.

Maybe this is the start of a new era of multi-country-hosted world cups. Already we have 3 for the next one and there's talks about having 4 in the 2030 one in South America.

Given that so many teams will be able to qualify, it's not crazy to qualify immediately more than one host.

We'll have to see what happens.

Just because the team is part of the host nations and getting opportunity isn't good. Atleast for this reason one country needs to host the event. Through this two teams additionally gets qualified into the World Cup. This means two countries that have given the best and stay unqualified. These situations needs to be taken into consideration and properly managed.

[Sithara007]

I dislike with FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United because this edition have three co-hosts and cut off two national team slot participants left, no doubt with added participants from 32 become 48 national team and three co-hosts have 45 national team will get place for participating in FIFA World Cup 2026.

Still controversy with added participants team in FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United and have many matches later but most advantage with commercial is FIFA, they will earn much commission from broadcast and advertising with have many matches than usually still adopt 32 national team participants.

FIFA earns revenue mostly from matches involving the stronger teams, such as Brazil, Argentina and France. Irrespective of whether it is a 32-team competition, or a 48-team competition, these teams will be playing the same number of matches (and since there is one more round of knockout matches, there is a good chances that some of these teams may exit the tournament prematurely). The only benefit for FIFA is that increased participation from Asian and African teams would translate into increased viewership and enthusiasm from these nations. The decision to expand the world cup was not based on any assumption of increased revenue.

[alegotardo]

It is not about being stronger, it is about the idea that the privilege to host a World Cup should engage the hosting nation as much as possible as it is what I said it is: a privilege. This way some fairness can be preserved for as long as the right to host the World Cup isn't won due to corruption.

I support the idea that World Cup events should be debated by a committee made up of members from several countries and not by a single institution with centralized decision-making power.

I recognize that FIFA's role is important and essential for world football, but events of great impact such as the Football World Cup should have their issues debated and resolved in common agreement with several representative countries, it would be more democratic, fair and probably it would greatly reduce the corruption that we all know exists within FIFA.