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

[LUCKMCFLY]

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.

The truth is that I differ a lot from you, I know that the world cups have been more European, but the total dominance that should be seen in Europe is that of Germany and Italy with 4 cups each, but Brazil has 5 in supremacy world cups, sun in the American continent and only if we go to South America, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay stand out, which are the countries that have the most, Europe differs in terms of the number per Country, so in this case, I would say with great propriety that the qualifiers The most difficult in the world are in South America and specifically CONMEBOL, UEFA has its level, but even so, Italy has 3 World Cups in a row that does not go to a World Cup (which has hurt me) because I love how Italy plays.

I know that in Europe they can say that their tie is more difficult, but come on, in South America you can have a difficult match at more than 40°C in the Barranquilla stadium and after two days if you play against Bolivia it's cold. extreme and with special conditions, that due to the altitude the players run out of oxygen, so the demand and the level of demand is very high, apart from that if you have to play against Brazil and finish off with Argentina it is something that I do not wish on anyone, only people like Messi, Neymar, and some more can say it.

So here in this part of the world, by level, there should be more quotas to be able to have more options to see teams that are only 1 point away or sometimes tied to qualify for a World Cup, even some have sometimes gone to the World Cup based on average goals, everything That is what should be considered here, otherwise if the South American qualifiers were not there, I would say that the most Difficult is the UEFA one , but come on, let's do a count, the best players who have stood out the most worldwide have It has been more from Brazil, Argentina, in these times it is still in that dominance, I have not seen a European player who causes so much Furor in people Worldwide , well until now, however, that is why I say that things are more Difficult in terms of it's over Here..

[wheelz1200]

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.

I'm not a huge fan of same amount of slots per "area".  What ends up happening is an uneven balance of poor performing teams.  And some of the top teams in the world are left out.  I don't know if there is a perfect way to get the right balance but I'm all for having the top teams in the world compete.

[shogun47]

...

The truth is that I differ a lot from you, I know that the world cups have been more European, but the total dominance that should be seen in Europe is that of Germany and Italy with 4 cups each, but Brazil has 5 in supremacy world cups, sun in the American continent and only if we go to South America, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay stand out, which are the countries that have the most, Europe differs in terms of the number per Country, so in this case, I would say with great propriety that the qualifiers The most difficult in the world are in South America and specifically CONMEBOL, UEFA has its level, but even so, Italy has 3 World Cups in a row that does not go to a World Cup (which has hurt me) because I love how Italy plays.

I know that in Europe they can say that their tie is more difficult, but come on, in South America you can have a difficult match at more than 40°C in the Barranquilla stadium and after two days if you play against Bolivia it's cold. extreme and with special conditions, that due to the altitude the players run out of oxygen, so the demand and the level of demand is very high, apart from that if you have to play against Brazil and finish off with Argentina it is something that I do not wish on anyone, only people like Messi, Neymar, and some more can say it.

So here in this part of the world, by level, there should be more quotas to be able to have more options to see teams that are only 1 point away or sometimes tied to qualify for a World Cup, even some have sometimes gone to the World Cup based on average goals, everything That is what should be considered here, otherwise if the South American qualifiers were not there, I would say that the most Difficult is the UEFA one , but come on, let's do a count, the best players who have stood out the most worldwide have It has been more from Brazil, Argentina, in these times it is still in that dominance, I have not seen a European player who causes so much Furor in people Worldwide , well until now, however, that is why I say that things are more Difficult in terms of it's over Here..

I have had this discussion as well already and I think this is really opinion-based and both sides have their pros and cons.

Talking about the weather conditions as a factor that makes the qualification "hard" would apply if it makes it relatively harder to qualify in direct comparison to any team from Europe. That's like, physically harder, but I guess this is not what we are discussing here. You are right with the weather, this is harder than in Europe, but it is not referring to the discussion about the quotas.

Regarding who are the best players in the world dominating the sport, this is very complicated because these things don't always go hand in hand with the country's performance a player is coming from. Actually, I don't even know if it strongly correlates with each other. Messi and Ronaldo won 11 world soccer player titles together and never won a World Cup, until Messi won the World Cup and his 7th individual title (12 in total then from both).
Imagine Haaland now dominating the Premier League and becoming the world's best player for several years, but will Norway ever win the World Cup?
Or what are the odds that Argentina has a next Messi anytime soon? Or what are the odds that Argentina has a world soccer player at all in the next 5 - 10 years?

You can see the same in tennis with Djokovic and Federer having won 43 Grand Slams, but the Davis Cup was won only once by each country.

But to avoid that you get me wrong here, I believe that throughout the future the majority of the best individual players might still come from Argentina or Brazil and I prefer their game and Messi is the GOAT for me. But Europe also has Ronaldo, Mbappe and Haaland as an example. Or take Iniesta, Zidane and Matthäus. Van Basten, Beckenbauer, etc.

If we just take a look at the quota, just the numbers, I think 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL with 10 starting teams is ok, otherwise why even play a qualification? If 7 teams out of 10 can qualify, what would a suggestion be to make it easier for CONMEBOL? 9 slots for 10 teams? I think that is what the discussion is about.

[FanEagle]

@shogun47
I think it's quite good the way it is right now, there is no reason to think that you should be doing more than what we are doing right now for certain continents, the result wouldn't be really that good. We have very fun world cup as it is and we are going to see increased number of entries as well, which means that it is going to be even more fun because we are going to see even more teams. That alone is good enough addition to what we have and I do not think that we require more things to change.

I think 2026 will be a great one but we are still three years away, so there is no reason to keep talking or thinking about it. Let it be for a while and we are going to see some stuff be the same and some stuff changing.

[nullama]

~snip~
If we just take a look at the quota, just the numbers, I think 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL with 10 starting teams is ok, otherwise why even play a qualification? If 7 teams out of 10 can qualify, what would a suggestion be to make it easier for CONMEBOL? 9 slots for 10 teams? I think that is what the discussion is about.

I think that 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL is a fair amount.

Historically there have been only 4.5 slots for 10 teams. The thing is that all of those 10 teams are strong and would perform great at the world cup. So only having 4 or 5 is a shame.

Now with up to 7 teams, I think it's reasonable. More would be too much, I think this is the maximum, 70% of the teams.

If they decide to go with the South American bid for the 2030 world cup, that would be a very interesting qualification, because it would be hosted by 4 teams: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay.



With the current rules, the hosting teams qualify immediately, but there isn't any extra slots for the confederation. So that would mean that 6 teams would be playing to get 2.5 slots. It would be very competitive.

[swogerino]

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.

I'm not a huge fan of same amount of slots per "area".  What ends up happening is an uneven balance of poor performing teams.  And some of the top teams in the world are left out.  I don't know if there is a perfect way to get the right balance but I'm all for having the top teams in the world compete.

I think the way it is,is a great one.The top teams are all given an equal chance to fight for those spots.Now I know that there are many top teams and inevitably some will be left out but that is the beauty of the qualifiers,they show us which team is the most capable of coming to the World Cup by qualifying and winning against other top teams.Since they are a two games qualifiers it means that a huge amount of luck is also needed because as they say the ball is round so even non top teams may be able to come out on top in two single games and as such leaving that top team out of the tournament.

[Leviathan.007]

~snip~
If we just take a look at the quota, just the numbers, I think 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL with 10 starting teams is ok, otherwise why even play a qualification? If 7 teams out of 10 can qualify, what would a suggestion be to make it easier for CONMEBOL? 9 slots for 10 teams? I think that is what the discussion is about.

I think that 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL is a fair amount.

Historically there have been only 4.5 slots for 10 teams. The thing is that all of those 10 teams are strong and would perform great at the world cup. So only having 4 or 5 is a shame.

Now with up to 7 teams, I think it's reasonable. More would be too much, I think this is the maximum, 70% of the teams.

If they decide to go with the South American bid for the 2030 world cup, that would be a very interesting qualification, because it would be hosted by 4 teams: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay.



With the current rules, the hosting teams qualify immediately, but there isn't any extra slots for the confederation. So that would mean that 6 teams would be playing to get 2.5 slots. It would be very competitive.

Even 6+1 slots are more than enough for CONMEBOL because in this confederation never had any team achieving something in the world cup in the last years other than Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Even teams in CONMEBOL other than Venezuela never got themselves into the world cup because they usually can't invest anything in their football and compared to the other teams in other confederations like European teams they never can grow and improve because of lower investments they had.

[shogun47]

~snip~
If we just take a look at the quota, just the numbers, I think 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL with 10 starting teams is ok, otherwise why even play a qualification? If 7 teams out of 10 can qualify, what would a suggestion be to make it easier for CONMEBOL? 9 slots for 10 teams? I think that is what the discussion is about.

I think that 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL is a fair amount.

Historically there have been only 4.5 slots for 10 teams. The thing is that all of those 10 teams are strong and would perform great at the world cup. So only having 4 or 5 is a shame.

Now with up to 7 teams, I think it's reasonable. More would be too much, I think this is the maximum, 70% of the teams.

If they decide to go with the South American bid for the 2030 world cup, that would be a very interesting qualification, because it would be hosted by 4 teams: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay.



With the current rules, the hosting teams qualify immediately, but there isn't any extra slots for the confederation. So that would mean that 6 teams would be playing to get 2.5 slots. It would be very competitive.

This is interesting to know because, really I wasn't aware that South America wants to pitch their application for the 2030 World Cup. It is interesting because they will be up against Saudi Arabia who, as we now know, are running an unbelievably aggressive PR campaign with all the players they buy and all the social media power they unite behind the Saudi Professional League and when I read about the league and the goals, it is always about 2030 and that the budget for transfers is made that way that they can continue buying players until then and improve the league further. This will be a fierce head to head between Saudi Arabia and their partners and the countries from South America.

[Sithara007]

I think that 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL is a fair amount.

Historically there have been only 4.5 slots for 10 teams. The thing is that all of those 10 teams are strong and would perform great at the world cup. So only having 4 or 5 is a shame.

Now with up to 7 teams, I think it's reasonable. More would be too much, I think this is the maximum, 70% of the teams.

If they decide to go with the South American bid for the 2030 world cup, that would be a very interesting qualification, because it would be hosted by 4 teams: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay.

With the current rules, the hosting teams qualify immediately, but there isn't any extra slots for the confederation. So that would mean that 6 teams would be playing to get 2.5 slots. It would be very competitive.

6.5 may sound a lot, but that is not the case in reality. CONMEBOL has 10 quality teams. Other confederations such as UEFA are having a mix of high-quality and low-quality teams. So even of 7 out of 10 teams qualify from CONMEBOL, three high quality teams are going to miss out. And that is the reason why I wanted a second round of global qualifiers. That will give a fighting chance for teams like Bolivia and Venezuela, who almost never qualify for the FIFA World cup due to the tough competition in CONMEBOL qualifiers.

[Silberman]

I think that 6.5 slots for CONMEBOL is a fair amount.

Historically there have been only 4.5 slots for 10 teams. The thing is that all of those 10 teams are strong and would perform great at the world cup. So only having 4 or 5 is a shame.

Now with up to 7 teams, I think it's reasonable. More would be too much, I think this is the maximum, 70% of the teams.

If they decide to go with the South American bid for the 2030 world cup, that would be a very interesting qualification, because it would be hosted by 4 teams: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay.


With the current rules, the hosting teams qualify immediately, but there isn't any extra slots for the confederation. So that would mean that 6 teams would be playing to get 2.5 slots. It would be very competitive.

In practice it would be 5 teams competing for 1.5 spots, as Brazil has qualified to every single world cup and I do not think we are about to see such an exception, so if the South American bid won the rights to host the world cup the rest of the teams will be under enormous pressure as they will have almost no room for error and a single loss or draw can be enough to get them out of the race to get a ticket to the world cup, so if anything that particular qualifier should be incredibly difficult due to the quality of the teams participating and the limited number of spots available.

[nullama]

~snip~
In practice it would be 5 teams competing for 1.5 spots, as Brazil has qualified to every single world cup and I do not think we are about to see such an exception, so if the South American bid won the rights to host the world cup the rest of the teams will be under enormous pressure as they will have almost no room for error and a single loss or draw can be enough to get them out of the race to get a ticket to the world cup, so if anything that particular qualifier should be incredibly difficult due to the quality of the teams participating and the limited number of spots available.

You're absolutely right. Brazil will probably qualify undefeated.

As you said, that would leave Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela with only 1.5 slots. I think Colombia would get the direct slot and the 0.5 will be battled between Ecuador and Peru, leaving Bolivia and Venezuela completely out. It's going to be a really tough one.

[Sithara007]

~snip~
In practice it would be 5 teams competing for 1.5 spots, as Brazil has qualified to every single world cup and I do not think we are about to see such an exception, so if the South American bid won the rights to host the world cup the rest of the teams will be under enormous pressure as they will have almost no room for error and a single loss or draw can be enough to get them out of the race to get a ticket to the world cup, so if anything that particular qualifier should be incredibly difficult due to the quality of the teams participating and the limited number of spots available.

You're absolutely right. Brazil will probably qualify undefeated.

As you said, that would leave Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela with only 1.5 slots. I think Colombia would get the direct slot and the 0.5 will be battled between Ecuador and Peru, leaving Bolivia and Venezuela completely out. It's going to be a really tough one.

What a load of BS? Just 1.5 slots for these quality teams? Automatic qualification for hosts worked in the past when there was no "co-host" system. But now 4-5 countries are hosting the tournament in one go and all of them want to get direct entry to the world cup. How that is going to work? There should be a limit for direct entries. Maybe in 2034, a dozen countries will put forward a bid to co-host the tournament. What the FIFA is going to do? Are they going to give direct entry to all these 12 teams? IMO, direct entry should be provided to just one team.

[Leviathan.007]

~snip~
In practice it would be 5 teams competing for 1.5 spots, as Brazil has qualified to every single world cup and I do not think we are about to see such an exception, so if the South American bid won the rights to host the world cup the rest of the teams will be under enormous pressure as they will have almost no room for error and a single loss or draw can be enough to get them out of the race to get a ticket to the world cup, so if anything that particular qualifier should be incredibly difficult due to the quality of the teams participating and the limited number of spots available.

You're absolutely right. Brazil will probably qualify undefeated.

As you said, that would leave Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela with only 1.5 slots. I think Colombia would get the direct slot and the 0.5 will be battled between Ecuador and Peru, leaving Bolivia and Venezuela completely out. It's going to be a really tough one.

I think the main reason of why Brazil qualifies in the world cup every year is mostly because other than Argentina and Brazil other teams in this confederation are not strong enough and they can't race with Brazil for getting qualified that's one good reason for these two teams Brazil and Argentina to have a great chance in every world cup.

[sana54210]

The current system seems to be as fine as it is, and I think it is going to be fine as well. I think it is going to be something that will be important for the time being and I guess it will definitely matter when the time comes. I think it is going to be important and we are going to see it change a lot. This should be important and we need to have a situation where it will not be simple.

We just need to make sure that life is not that simple for these teams, you can't just take them all and we pick the best ones. This amount of teams would be fine, it is not a lot, it is not not enough neither, it is just enough and this makes sure that they are sending their best teams and will do as much good as it possibly could in the end.

[Sithara007]

I think the main reason of why Brazil qualifies in the world cup every year is mostly because other than Argentina and Brazil other teams in this confederation are not strong enough and they can't race with Brazil for getting qualified that's one good reason for these two teams Brazil and Argentina to have a great chance in every world cup.

LOL.. have you paid attention to the previous editions of the CONMEBOL qualifiers? It is not easy for Brazil and there were frequent instances of lower ranking teams defeating Brazil. Back in 2018 qualifiers, Chile managed to defeat Brazil by a margin of 2-0. Before that, in 2010 Paraguay managed to defeat them 2-0 and they also famously lost to Bolivia by a margin of 2-1. Bolivia is considered as one of the weakest teams in CONMEBOL, and Paraguay and Chile didn't managed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. So in short, it is not always a cakewalk for Brazil.

[nullama]

~snip~
I think the main reason of why Brazil qualifies in the world cup every year is mostly because other than Argentina and Brazil other teams in this confederation are not strong enough and they can't race with Brazil for getting qualified that's one good reason for these two teams Brazil and Argentina to have a great chance in every world cup.

All 10 teams from CONMEBOL have world class football skills, and all of them would do great at the World Cup.

Yes, overall Brazil and Argentina are usually better, but the quality of the rest of the teams is really high as well.

Compared to the rest of the world, all these 10 teams are better than most.

[dezoel]

What a load of BS? Just 1.5 slots for these quality teams? Automatic qualification for hosts worked in the past when there was no "co-host" system. But now 4-5 countries are hosting the tournament in one go and all of them want to get direct entry to the world cup. How that is going to work? There should be a limit for direct entries. Maybe in 2034, a dozen countries will put forward a bid to co-host the tournament. What the FIFA is going to do? Are they going to give direct entry to all these 12 teams? IMO, direct entry should be provided to just one team.

I agree with you on this statement partially because right now we have laps in this new system with co-hosting, but surely we are never going to have 6 or 12 countries are going to host any event because this is never been ideal in practically and FIFA also never go to do experiments like these but still they need to think about this all, and surely we need some better changes for this as well because now with this we already have four teams into group stages which is surely problem.

Here, we need some limits or any strategy which helps for the countries which are going to play qualifiers here we need a competition where these hosts will play, and then we will have just one or two countries to be direct qualifier and all others have to play qualifiers which will make some sense for the all countries as well.

[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.

Europeans have always dominated the World Cup tournament since its inception. Brazil and Argentina are the only Latin American countries outside of Europe that have done well at the World Cup, and no other continent has had any significant success at the World Cup. All the countries that have won the World Cup trophy so far are from Europe and America. So far, no country outside of Europe and America has been able to make a significant performance in the World Cup. Teams from Asia and Africa who qualify for the World Cup don't do very well against the Europeans. As an African country, Morocco played in the semi-finals of the last World Cup, the highest achievement for an African country to play in the semi-finals.

[Leviathan.007]

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.

Europeans have always dominated the World Cup tournament since its inception. Brazil and Argentina are the only Latin American countries outside of Europe that have done well at the World Cup, and no other continent has had any significant success at the World Cup. All the countries that have won the World Cup trophy so far are from Europe and America. So far, no country outside of Europe and America has been able to make a significant performance in the World Cup. Teams from Asia and Africa who qualify for the World Cup don't do very well against the Europeans. As an African country, Morocco played in the semi-finals of the last World Cup, the highest achievement for an African country to play in the semi-finals.

Football is first priority in some countries like Brazil, that's why we can see people think a country like Brazil got more chance to win the world cup ticket than other teams in CONMEBOL, also since the European countries invest much more than other countries, we usually see these teams on Europe have better performance in world cup every year.

[FanEagle]

What a load of BS? Just 1.5 slots for these quality teams? Automatic qualification for hosts worked in the past when there was no "co-host" system. But now 4-5 countries are hosting the tournament in one go and all of them want to get direct entry to the world cup. How that is going to work? There should be a limit for direct entries. Maybe in 2034, a dozen countries will put forward a bid to co-host the tournament. What the FIFA is going to do? Are they going to give direct entry to all these 12 teams? IMO, direct entry should be provided to just one team.

That's how hosting works, when you have a team that's hosting, you just have to accept the fact that it's not going to be easy to get in for other teams. I understand that it is going to be tough and I understand that it's not "fair" looking, but at the same time there will be some teams that will end up getting automatic entry in other continents if it wasn't in this continent.

Like what if it was England-France-Netherlands that joined, they would get automatic entry as well, and there will be three teams that will argue, to be fair those three would probably get in anyway, but this three got in anyway as well. All in all, I bet that this is as fair as it gets on the long run, because it happens to everyone equally.