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

[Pjcr7]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

[$crypto$]

Just the thought that struck me recently. Could Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup be related to the fact that their clubs rely heavily on foreign players rather than developing their own talent? Even holding Italian residency doesn’t guarantee that given player will represent the country. If my memory serves me right, Ronaldo held Italian residency while playing for Juventus, yet he never played for Italy in any World Cup. So the real problem seems to be the lack of Italian‑born talent coming through the system.

There are no prominent Italian players today, most Italian clubs rely on players outside Italy by bringing them in, indeed the development of young talent is now lacking for this country, is it because the selection is less rigorous or is there no better coach? I think it could be the failure of the Federation itself.

Ronaldo will not be able to play for the Italian national team even though he had a residence permit in Italy when he was at Juventus, because he had previously even bought the senior Portugal national team from a young age so this is not allowed to play double in two countries.

[Italian Panic]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

He’s not entirely wrong, it’s true that Italy plays poorly and doesn’t have any great players, but at the end of the discussion, who is going to watch those matches? For example: Curacao vs. Ecuador, Jordan vs. Algeria, Uzbekistan vs. Congo, who’s going to watch those matches? Do they have the technical skill level of a World Cup match?
Don’t focus on who said this or whether they are saying it just because they didn’t qualify.

Or maybe, the european qualification have the wrong format, it's better a format like south america, not with only one table, but with much more tables with some first line team and some second and third line teams. So, no 10  tables with 4 teams but 4 tables with 10 teams, only for example.

[changaa]

I agree with you, but lately that's been changing, with players only caring about the money. I understand that it's fair, it's their job. But some players no longer feel pride in participating in the World Cup for their country. It's become more about media attention than glory.

What you say has been happening for a long time now, players no longer care about the shirt but only about the money and the contract, i don't want to judge for the sake of it, but you are seen how Roberto Mancini, Simone Inzaghi, Retegui, Cristiano Ronaldo behaved, that's all I'll say. Very few said no.

[JeffBrad12]

So there was news that the Italian players demanded 300K euros if they could beat Bosnia and qualify --- but in reality the national team still lost.

Is it because of the factor of their demands not being fulfilled by the Federation so that they play not full of enthusiasm? I know every player needs money, but usually for a country's match they often don't think about that and are more devoted.

I don't know if this statement is their failure to qualify, or if it's true that Italy is bad, but I saw this news on X.

It's fake news. Gigi has confirmed that his team never ever asked for that. 300k is just pennies for all of them. It makes no sense football players wo get millions yearly should be begging just to get 300k for en entire team. That's why was thinking it's a non sense accusation to the italian team.
It's very sad after they failed to get a ticket to the WC. They get blasted with this fake scandal that hurted them even more.

The fact that being qualified to the WC was bigger than the money linked to them. It makes no sense 300k was more valuable than their chance to broken their bad record to not qualify for the WC two times in a row.
It's very sad they failed to do that, and they get mocked for the next 4 years due to it.

[giorgione]

Last season, Inter lost the Champions League Final five goals to nothing to PSG. Within days, Inzaghi packed his bags and travelled to Al-Hilal. They introduced Chivu, and all of them sort of laughed at it. Then Inter goes and sits first in Serie A with seventy-two points, scoring seventy-one goals, winning five nil against Torino, winning five nil against Sassuolo.

Then A Norwegian club kick them out of the Champions League. Three one in Norway, two one at the San Siro. Five two overall and Bodo/Glimt was the first Norwegian team to win a UCL knockout game. It was heartbreaking, particularly to a team with the particular psychological baggage of seeking redemption over the PSG final.

So March arrives. Bastoni has already competed in about fifty to sixty games with Inter this season in Serie A and the Champions League. He is literally on the verge of what one can endure. And Gattuso, who replaced Spalletti in June, is not a man of profound institutional trust, yet.

You mentioned that the World Cup is the greatest dream. but see what Ballon d'Or has been telling us the past three years. Benzema in 2022 to his UCL run, not a world cup. Rodri in 2024 to dominate the club. Dembele in 2025 since PSG have won their first champions league. The Ballon d'Or has effectively been turned into a Champions League prize with some exceptions and the final exception (Messi in 2023, to the 2022 World Cup) already seems the final puff of the old pecking order.

By the way, Kean scored eight goals in his six recent appearances with Italy. Was the fourth player in Italian history to score in six consecutive games in the national team, joining Riva and Bettega. Brilliant. Beautiful. And it was nothing at all since the framework around him fell down the minute Bastoni was sent off at forty-one minutes.

Barella, Tonali, Calafiori at Arsenal in a UCL quarter-final at the moment and looking totally different every week. The talent exists. But Gattuso is away. On the second of April Gravina resigned. Buffon resigned as a delegate. They have not even chosen a new FIGC president yet, until June twenty-second. Conte is not even allowed to formally negotiate the job until after that date since De Laurentiis is still negotiating the conditions of his release of him out of Napoli. The 2030 cycle is already underway as they restructure a whole institution on its foundations.

Is the World Cup the greater dream? For me in my gut, still yes. But Bastoni has endured three consecutive playoff eliminations without ever having set foot in a World Cup and the organisation that is supposed to take him there simply does not work at the moment. I'm not sure what else you can expect him to say.

we are not talking about Inter which in this case was the one that brought more players to the national team but also people who have no respect for the national team shirt, in fact these guys seemed very superficial, they didn't play as a team and they certainly cared more about the Inter shirt than the national team one.

[Ale88]

Just the thought that struck me recently. Could Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup be related to the fact that their clubs rely heavily on foreign players rather than developing their own talent? Even holding Italian residency doesn’t guarantee that given player will represent the country. If my memory serves me right, Ronaldo held Italian residency while playing for Juventus, yet he never played for Italy in any World Cup. So the real problem seems to be the lack of Italian‑born talent coming through the system.

What are you talking about? Do you understand the difference between fiscal residency and citizenship? How could Ronaldo ever play for Italy if he's Portuguese? Just because you live somewhere and you pay taxes there it doesn't make you a citizen.
And do you even know when and how a player can switch the national team? Ronaldo moved to Juventus when he was 33 years old, at that point he played more than 100 games with Portugal, do you think he could switch team? Did Ronaldo ever play for Spain?

[Webetcoins]

While I respect that there are a lot more teams doing as good as they can from other continents, we have to be serious about this, the only teams that have any chance of winning this cup are coming from either Europe or from Latin America, that's it.

Africa is a good third place, they try and they are not bad at all, but I am not sure when was the last time if any African team even won it (never). So, it's possible to say that Latin America already sends almost all their nations, and yet Europe still sends a few compared to all the good teams.

[jaberwock]

If you believe that any team is getting better or any continent is getting better, then it makes sense to have a world cup qualifiers that is based on world, not from continent. I still support a situation where ALL FIFA teams get together and battle each other out, that way we would have 48 teams from all around the world but only the best goes.

I guarantee you that there would be way more than 16 teams from Europe going there, and teams like Tahiti will not be at world cup, they would be dominated and humiliated and sent back. Why have a world cup qualifiers, but limit to to continents only? The only reason is because they want teams from all continents to go, if they did it my way, there would be continents not sending a single team.

[Jegileman]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

He’s just looking for excuse for his failures. Even if Europe’s are given more of the Africans slots in the competition, as long as you don’t do well with your team to qualify, you’ll still come up with an excuse to satisfy your failure. I am just coming across this here for the first time but I must say, it is a thin of shame from someone like him with his experience in the world of football, he should do better and stop making silly excuses to satisfy his mistake and inability to qualify his team for the World Cup.

Ronaldo will not be able to play for the Italian national team even though he had a residence permit in Italy when he was at Juventus, because he had previously even bought the senior Portugal national team from a young age so this is not allowed to play double in two countries.

Won’t that even look too absurd. Ronaldo going to play there after coming this far in the Portugal national team is kinda weird. The people will only see that as him doing them a favour because they cannot come up with formidable players again to lift the country up. The rules set for this kind of cases is very perfect and that’s what will be used, so there is no even an imaginary case of him joining them even if he owns a citizenship there.

[Mindyspace]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

I also find it a bit strange that he keeps insisting on this. The distribution of spots always generates discussion, but it seems he only focuses on African teams and forgets that Europe also has many spots.

In the end, no other coach is complaining about this as much, so it seems more like frustration than anything else, and it's quite sad.

[Pjcr7]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

He’s not entirely wrong, it’s true that Italy plays poorly and doesn’t have any great players, but at the end of the discussion, who is going to watch those matches? For example: Curacao vs. Ecuador, Jordan vs. Algeria, Uzbekistan vs. Congo, who’s going to watch those matches? Do they have the technical skill level of a World Cup match?
Don’t focus on who said this or whether they are saying it just because they didn’t qualify.

Technically you are saying these teams don't deserve to be in the competition even when they earned their place to be there. We are all currently watching the Champions League and the top leagues gets five teams to represent the league, low league gets one or two slots only, I have never seen an coach from these top leagues coming to complain about the few slots of the low leagues because they feel those teams will not be able to represent properly in the competition. Olympiacos played against Pafos and people watched it because it was televised that's how people will sit and watch Jordan vs Algeria, the two nations will watch it. It's a world cup and not European competition, so every nations that qualifies has every right to participate in it. Gatusso is a failed coach that's why his always crying.

[Ale88]

If you believe that any team is getting better or any continent is getting better, then it makes sense to have a world cup qualifiers that is based on world, not from continent. I still support a situation where ALL FIFA teams get together and battle each other out, that way we would have 48 teams from all around the world but only the best goes.

I guarantee you that there would be way more than 16 teams from Europe going there, and teams like Tahiti will not be at world cup, they would be dominated and humiliated and sent back. Why have a world cup qualifiers, but limit to to continents only? The only reason is because they want teams from all continents to go, if they did it my way, there would be continents not sending a single team.

I understand what you mean but, despite going against my own interest with what I'm about to say, I disagree. It's called World Cup for a reason: because there are teams from all over the world. I have nothing against teams from Oceania, of course they are weak compared to other national teams but I think it's fair to have at least one team from that part of the world.

What I don't like are the different types of qualification all around the world because they don't make a lot of sense: in South America we have up to 70% of the teams that can potentially qualify for the World Cup. In North America this time there were no USA, no Mexico and no Canada, so all the strongest teams were already qualified therefore there were spaces left only for weak teams. That is exactly the reason we saw Curaçao and Haiti qualified. In a normal situation they wouldn't. And then we have cases like Europe where you can miss the qualification losing 1 or 2 matches out of 10 or Sweden that qualified thanks to the Europa League results.

In my opinion they don't have to change the system, they have to fix it.

[Sithara007]

If you believe that any team is getting better or any continent is getting better, then it makes sense to have a world cup qualifiers that is based on world, not from continent. I still support a situation where ALL FIFA teams get together and battle each other out, that way we would have 48 teams from all around the world but only the best goes.

I guarantee you that there would be way more than 16 teams from Europe going there, and teams like Tahiti will not be at world cup, they would be dominated and humiliated and sent back. Why have a world cup qualifiers, but limit to to continents only? The only reason is because they want teams from all continents to go, if they did it my way, there would be continents not sending a single team.

There needs to be a balanced approach. What I would suggest is two tiers of qualifiers. First tier would be based on the confederation, and a total of 24 teams (50%) should qualify through this route. The number of slots would be 50% of what it is now. Under this system, the 24 slots would be divided as follows:

UEFA: 8 slots
CAF: 4 slots
AFC: 4 slots
CONMEBOL: 4 slots (Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Uruguay)
CONCACAF: 3 slots (probably Canada, United States, Mexico will qualify)
OFC: 1 slot (probably New Zealand will qualify)

The remaining 24 slots should be decided from a global qualifier tournament, in which 72 teams from different confederations would take part. 24 teams who qualify through this route will join the other 24 teams who qualified directly from the confederations.

Slots for the global qualifier will be 72 (out of that 24 would qualify). Participating teams by confederation:

UEFA: 24 slots
CAF: 15 slots
AFC: 15 slots
CONMEBOL: 6 slots (all the remaining teams)
CONCACAF: 9 slots
OFC: 3 slots (probably New Caledonia, Fiji and Tahiti)

This system will make sure that only the best make it to the world cup. But logistics can be a problem, as huge number of teams will be participating and due to the global nature of the tournament.

[Iamgoat]

Won’t that even look too absurd. Ronaldo going to play there after coming this far in the Portugal national team is kinda weird. The people will only see that as him doing them a favour because they cannot come up with formidable players again to lift the country up. The rules set for this kind of cases is very perfect and that’s what will be used, so there is no even an imaginary case of him joining them even if he owns a citizenship there.

I think only one thing can easily make a player changes their decision abruptly like this and the reason has always remained more about the money than any other thing. Ronaldo which I know very well wouldn’t want to change his national team at this career of his life. I know him to making decisions based on his convictions and not necessarily because there was a money involved. The money is always a great motivation but not the deciding factor why Ronaldo would want to consider switching his country’s national team to the Italian team.

[pewboy]

Or maybe, the european qualification have the wrong format, it's better a format like south america, not with only one table, but with much more tables with some first line team and some second and third line teams. So, no 10  tables with 4 teams but 4 tables with 10 teams, only for example.

I understand what you mean, we are both Italian and in fact FIFA always does its utmost to find teams that have a very large culture and fan base (like Italy for example).
But we must also be honest, Italian football, played by Italians i mean, has truly become very impoverished.
We prefer to let young people from other nations play and improve.

[UchihaSarada]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

His saying is reasonable even if you are just a neutral football fan, not need to be a Italy fan.

Don't try comparing Italy with any national teams in other continents, just comparing it to national teams in the Europe like Sweden. Do you see anything not logic here?

Sweden finished their group with a last rank under Switzerland, Kosovo and Slovenia with 2 draws, and 4 losses in 6 matches and they finished their group qualification phase with only 2 points. How they got a special ticket to playoff through Nations League is already insane but how they became qualified for World Cup 2026 tournament is more insane.

Gattuso has reasons to feel it is unfair and I agree with him. It's not yet discussing about how Dzeko let the ball hit his hands but there was no VAR check in that situation which leads to a goal for Bosnia. Italy football has many problems that must he improved but how their national team was defeated by Bosnia is not right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_%E2%80%93_UEFA_Group_B

[Nheer]

While I respect that there are a lot more teams doing as good as they can from other continents, we have to be serious about this, the only teams that have any chance of winning this cup are coming from either Europe or from Latin America, that's it.

Africa is a good third place, they try and they are not bad at all, but I am not sure when was the last time if any African team even won it (never). So, it's possible to say that Latin America already sends almost all their nations, and yet Europe still sends a few compared to all the good teams.

When be base it on past performances then I think you're right the favorites to win it are teams from Europe and Latin America but sometimes football don't play out that way always so I won't be surprised if a team from another continent wins it (not likely). Somehow even with the good performance African teams bring to the World Cup they haven't really done much so it's understandable when they are not among the favorites. Although I would love to see them perform well to reach the final stage of the competition.

Just the thought that struck me recently. Could Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup be related to the fact that their clubs rely heavily on foreign players rather than developing their own talent? Even holding Italian residency doesn’t guarantee that given player will represent the country. If my memory serves me right, Ronaldo held Italian residency while playing for Juventus, yet he never played for Italy in any World Cup. So the real problem seems to be the lack of Italian‑born talent coming through the system.

Ronaldo playing for Italy is not even possible. Probably it could have happened in the past but right now I don't see him leaving Portugal to play for the badge of another country. Living in a country doesn't make you a citizen just because you pay tax and what reason would make him to switch Nationality now? He is not facing any problems or has issues to make him switch. He's already at the end of his career so there's no point in switching.

[JeffBrad12]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

Gattuso is a terrible coach. The problem is he can't accept that he's a mediocre coach. So he used non european club as an excuse to hide his stupidity. This is my reason to questioned Italy's decision to appoint him as a coach. This is also obvious he's a racist guy.
The good thing is that he's failed at Italy, and he's already resigned. So we won't see no more excuse by him to blame other clubs for his fail.

His appointment is the most tragic appointment i have ever seen.

[RaltcoinsB]

I wonder why Gatusso is still hell bent on this matter, I'm starting to feel like his so obsessed with African teams. Late last year he was angry that Africa moved from 5 automatic slots to 9 automatic slots with one more slot via playoffs. He raised this issue late last year and questioned why Africa has 10 slots but forgot to mention or question why Europe got 16 slots and funny enough no other coach from either Africa or South America complained about this. In the playoffs Europe got 4 slots and no one is complaining about. Is it the fault of Africa that he couldn't lead his team to qualification? Gatusso needs to start thinking properly and stop making noise or maybe he prefers FIFA to give Europe 30 slots and the rest of the world should share the remaining 18 slots left.

He’s not entirely wrong, it’s true that Italy plays poorly and doesn’t have any great players, but at the end of the discussion, who is going to watch those matches? For example: Curacao vs. Ecuador, Jordan vs. Algeria, Uzbekistan vs. Congo, who’s going to watch those matches? Do they have the technical skill level of a World Cup match?
Don’t focus on who said this or whether they are saying it just because they didn’t qualify.

Technically you are saying these teams don't deserve to be in the competition even when they earned their place to be there. We are all currently watching the Champions League and the top leagues gets five teams to represent the league, low league gets one or two slots only, I have never seen an coach from these top leagues coming to complain about the few slots of the low leagues because they feel those teams will not be able to represent properly in the competition. Olympiacos played against Pafos and people watched it because it was televised that's how people will sit and watch Jordan vs Algeria, the two nations will watch it. It's a world cup and not European competition, so every nations that qualifies has every right to participate in it. Gatusso is a failed coach that's why his always crying.

If Gattuso couldn't take Italy to the World Cup, he's solely responsible. Italy doesn't have a terrible or mediocre squad. In terms of squad value, Italy is one of the strongest teams in Europe. However, when it came to the tournament, they failed, and after losing the final to Bosnia-Herzegovina, they completely lost their World Cup dreams. Now, all they have to do is watch them on TV during the summer. Maybe they can go to USA and watch them from the stadium