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

[Smack That Ace]

Asian Zone World Cup Qualifiers for the third round will begin early next month and we will see quite lot of matches categorized into 3 group, each group filled by 6 countries.
In this third round, it can also be said to be determinant for which countries are able to qualify to enter and participate in the real competition later in 2026, besides that in the third round we can see meeting between the team that are indeed the strongest for the Asian zone.
Here, what is quite easy to compete is group C, we can see that group C is filled by team that can be said to be not strong teams for Asia overall, maybe only Japan is the strongest team here and they are the favorites for group C.

Because FIFA has decided to added more participant on world cup 2026 from 32 to 48 countries then the effect is Asia Zone will gets more ticket than the previous world cup and for the current world cup Asia will gets total 8 tickets and 1 ticket from play off stages so this makes some of teams on the 3rd round will have more opportunities to advances to the group stages of world cup or at least will qualified to the 4th round

And for group C i have to says this is hell group because in this group there are some of strong teams who always be regularly to participant to world cup such as Saudi Arabia ,Japan and Australia and these teams will fight to gets top 2 position on round 3 because if i am not mistaken the teams who finish on that position will be automatically advances to the world cup

The group C fight will be very interesting to see. I think the ones qualifying from this group will be Japan and Saudi Arabia. Australia did not qualify for the previous world cup, so I think they will be very hungry to get their tickets as early as possible. It will be very hard to predict between Australia and Saudi Arabia but I believe Saudi Arabia will go through.

On the other hand group A looks a little interesting. Iran, Qatar, and UAE are some of the teams to look out for. And also no one knows how North Korea might play so it would be interesting to see their performance.

Making the prediction of Group B seems rather easy, South Korea and Iraq are the clear favorites. But in international games, upsets are seen quite often. So it would be quite interesting to see how they turn out.

Duke Khan

[Frankolala]

Previously it was 16 teams, which got expanded to 24 in 1982, and then again to 32 in 1998. And from 2026, they are going to expand it again to 48 teams. I have seen a lot of opposition from some people, who claim that the quality will go down. I disagree with them. Previously that was the case. The gap between top teams and the smaller teams was huge. The situation has changed, and this in turn has made it possible to include more teams in the tournament without impacting the quality of matches.

I also disagree that the quality of the World Cup will be reduced. More countries are improving in football, and these nations deserve to be allowed to feature in the global competition. We have seen more teams in Africa and Asia showing more quality in their games so they deserve to have more slots in the competition.

Some people also accused FIFA President Gianni Infantino of using this expansion to increase his chances of winning his re-election. Thereby insinuating that the increase of the World Cup participants was not for the good of the game but for political reasons. I don't care what they think, but I see the FIFA president as a reformist who has brought so many new ideas to the organization.

It is good to see more countries join the world cup to carry everyone ong. Who knows if we will see good players that will become professionals and play in big European clubs in future from these new countries joining the world cup, because if they are not given any opportunity to participate how will you see the best in them.

I want to watch more matches and see these new countries performance before I will know if it was a good one or not. Football is what unites the world together because most people loves football and it is used as a game to bring people from different countries and regions together in love.

[indah rezqi]

Previously it was 16 teams, which got expanded to 24 in 1982, and then again to 32 in 1998. And from 2026, they are going to expand it again to 48 teams. I have seen a lot of opposition from some people, who claim that the quality will go down. I disagree with them. Previously that was the case. The gap between top teams and the smaller teams was huge. The situation has changed, and this in turn has made it possible to include more teams in the tournament without impacting the quality of matches.

I also disagree that the quality of the World Cup will be reduced. More countries are improving in football, and these nations deserve to be allowed to feature in the global competition. We have seen more teams in Africa and Asia showing more quality in their games so they deserve to have more slots in the competition.

Some people also accused FIFA President Gianni Infantino of using this expansion to increase his chances of winning his re-election. Thereby insinuating that the increase of the World Cup participants was not for the good of the game but for political reasons. I don't care what they think, but I see the FIFA president as a reformist who has brought so many new ideas to the organization.

It is good to see more countries join the world cup to carry everyone ong. Who knows if we will see good players that will become professionals and play in big European clubs in future from these new countries joining the world cup, because if they are not given any opportunity to participate how will you see the best in them.

I want to watch more matches and see these new countries performance before I will know if it was a good one or not. Football is what unites the world together because most people loves football and it is used as a game to bring people from different countries and regions together in love.

I think that despite the criticism from various circles, FIFA breakthrough in increasing the number of participants in the 2026 World Cup has provided a fair opportunity for every participating country. Although in addition, FIFA will gain a lot of financial benefits with more matches played, I think that is a fact that cannot be ignored. FIFA must have studied it first before implementing the new rules, and overall the format change can attract more fans in the future.

On the other hand, the format change certainly adds to the complexity of the competition, not the opposite. Countries that previously had difficulty getting the opportunity to participate are quite happy with FIFA idea, they feel they have a greater chance of being part of the World Cup event. We hope that this can be successful and will not reduce the quality of the World Cup. Apart from all that, every change to the rules is certainly not free from pros and cons, and everyone is free to assume.

[Leviathan.007]

Asian Zone World Cup Qualifiers for the third round will begin early next month and we will see quite lot of matches categorized into 3 group, each group filled by 6 countries.
In this third round, it can also be said to be determinant for which countries are able to qualify to enter and participate in the real competition later in 2026, besides that in the third round we can see meeting between the team that are indeed the strongest for the Asian zone.
Here, what is quite easy to compete is group C, we can see that group C is filled by team that can be said to be not strong teams for Asia overall, maybe only Japan is the strongest team here and they are the favorites for group C.

Because FIFA has decided to added more participant on world cup 2026 from 32 to 48 countries then the effect is Asia Zone will gets more ticket than the previous world cup and for the current world cup Asia will gets total 8 tickets and 1 ticket from play off stages so this makes some of teams on the 3rd round will have more opportunities to advances to the group stages of world cup or at least will qualified to the 4th round

And for group C i have to says this is hell group because in this group there are some of strong teams who always be regularly to participant to world cup such as Saudi Arabia ,Japan and Australia and these teams will fight to gets top 2 position on round 3 because if i am not mistaken the teams who finish on that position will be automatically advances to the world cup

The group C fight will be very interesting to see. I think the ones qualifying from this group will be Japan and Saudi Arabia. Australia did not qualify for the previous world cup, so I think they will be very hungry to get their tickets as early as possible. It will be very hard to predict between Australia and Saudi Arabia but I believe Saudi Arabia will go through.

On the other hand group A looks a little interesting. Iran, Qatar, and UAE are some of the teams to look out for. And also no one knows how North Korea might play so it would be interesting to see their performance.

Making the prediction of Group B seems rather easy, South Korea and Iraq are the clear favorites. But in international games, upsets are seen quite often. So it would be quite interesting to see how they turn out.

Duke Khan

Saudi Arabia is the country they just spent money to have better performance and better teas for the world cups and they even hired some expensive coaches for their teams too but this won't be enough because they still can't have the good performance like Japan and the other developed terms by just spending more money.
I still think in this group Japan will get a better place than Saudi Arabia and maybe after two first teams, Saudi Arabia can be the third team of this group.

[Sithara007]

Saudi Arabia is the country they just spent money to have better performance and better teas for the world cups and they even hired some expensive coaches for their teams too but this won't be enough because they still can't have the good performance like Japan and the other developed terms by just spending more money.
I still think in this group Japan will get a better place than Saudi Arabia and maybe after two first teams, Saudi Arabia can be the third team of this group.

Don't write off the Saudis yet. Two years ago, they started investing in sports, and they have poured billions of $$$ into different disciplines. The best footballers in the world are taking part in the Saudi Professional League, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mané and Aleksandar Mitrović. The impact of this investment will not be visible immediately. It may take anywhere from 5 years to 10 years, to become fully noticeable. And Japan is a laughing stock now. They are a dying nation and doesn't have any future.