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

[Slow death]

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?

As strange as it may seem, the reality is that many national teams that were once considered very weak have had their governments, through football federations, start using methods to send children abroad to play football. It didn't matter if they went to countries in Europe, Asia, or America; as long as they played for teams on those continents, everything was fine. Because of this, these weak national teams now have good national teams that manage to qualify for the World Cup.

It's really strange to see Curaçao in the World Cup and not Italy, but Curaçao is there on its own merit and will have its people, and I believe we will also see Americans and many other people from other countries watching Curaçao's games. The World Cup isn't just about watching games of the big national teams; it's about watching the World Cup games live. Many people who go to watch World Cup games don't actually watch soccer, but because they want to tell their friends they were watching World Cup games, they end up watching all the matches.

[retreat]

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

From the start, expectations for Gattuso weren’t particularly high, he was really just the last resort to become Italy’s coach and had no issues whatsoever with the Italian Football Federation. So what kind of expectations could one have for a coach like him? It’s just that Italy’s elimination by Bosnia and Herzegovina was indeed quite devastating, because their squad wasn’t all that bad, they should have at least qualified for the World Cup. But Gattuso’s failure shattered those hopes and prevented them from advancing in this World Cup.

[Jaycoinz]

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

From the start, expectations for Gattuso weren’t particularly high, he was really just the last resort to become Italy’s coach and had no issues whatsoever with the Italian Football Federation. So what kind of expectations could one have for a coach like him? It’s just that Italy’s elimination by Bosnia and Herzegovina was indeed quite devastating, because their squad wasn’t all that bad, they should have at least qualified for the World Cup. But Gattuso’s failure shattered those hopes and prevented them from advancing in this World Cup.

It's just so sad how the mighty have fallen, because the Italian national is one that have made great memories and won so many trophies and it's just so sad seeing them not qualified for the world cup and not only ones but twice now which is just too bad. Although the level of teams and caliber of players that have for Italy compared to the current squad I can say that they have really fallen short of actually world class players.

[Lida93]

No matter how many chances are created in order to increase the number of teams to participate in the World Cup there's still going to uncertainties in who qualifies, and that's exactly what happened to teams like Italy who will be missing the tournament for the third consecutive time, or Poland who have a great squad or Norway and even North Macedonia who stopped Italy from making to the last World Cup in Qatar. The fact still remains that as the slots are being increased, in same vein, the qualification process becomes more tedious for the teams.

The problem is with having playoffs during the qualifiers. One bad match is all it takes for a team like Italy to get kicked out of the World Cup. And this is where I support the AFC. Compared to qualifiers in UEFA, the AFC had such a format that made sure that only the strongest teams qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Till the 4th round, matches were played in a round robin format. Only knockout match was the one between United Arab Emirates and Iraq during the 5th round. A similar format for UEFA would have resulted in Italy gaining the qualification ahead of Bosnia.

I understand what you're saying with your comparison with the AFCON and UEFA but for me these formats setup for qualification to the tournament isn't it any much difference. Both still makes room for the strongest to qualify. Take of an example in the group stage which is the first place for qualification, had it being that Italy was that strong they would have qualified from there and we wouldn't be discussing about playoffs with Italy. Recently, Italy strength in football has being declining, and for the national team to not qualify for the WC for three times in a row it says much about their abysmal declining.

[Lembo69]

The 4-time  World Cup winner has not been able to play in the World Cup for the past 3 seasons, I can't see anything other than the coach's frustration here. Because it's not normal for it to happen 3 times, just think about how badly the Italian coaches trained them. If a strong team like them is eliminated in the qualifying round, then why wouldn't their existence be questioned? They should have participated in the qualifying round with the best coach and best player. But they didn't do that, or the coach thought they would do much better in this match, or their preparation for the FIFA World Cup was bad.

They may even assume that the game was bad for their coach, but that's not the case at all. Basically, it was because of their players, because they didn't seem to have put in the effort.

[slapper]

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?

As strange as it may seem, the reality is that many national teams that were once considered very weak have had their governments, through football federations, start using methods to send children abroad to play football. It didn't matter if they went to countries in Europe, Asia, or America; as long as they played for teams on those continents, everything was fine. Because of this, these weak national teams now have good national teams that manage to qualify for the World Cup.

It's really strange to see Curaçao in the World Cup and not Italy, but Curaçao is there on its own merit and will have its people, and I believe we will also see Americans and many other people from other countries watching Curaçao's games. The World Cup isn't just about watching games of the big national teams; it's about watching the World Cup games live. Many people who go to watch World Cup games don't actually watch soccer, but because they want to tell their friends they were watching World Cup games, they end up watching all the matches.

Curaacao is a smaller than most cities Caribbean island. They have a completely Dutch-raised team. Ok, well I prefer grandma Island to Netherlands B. And all of a sudden, World Cup.

Is that cheating? I go back and forth on it. On the one hand, those guys are real. Tahith Chong is real. The Bacuna brothers are real people who actually have Curacaoan roots. However, the entire development occurred in Europe. The academies, the coaching, all. And what exactly then are we celebrating when Curacao qualifies? I believe we are celebrating the system at work. All countries have their version of this at present.

But Italy. God. Italy has been doing the "we're too good for this" thing for years and it keeps not working. They were literally winning the playoff final and somehow managed to lose.

And the crowd thing you mentioned is totally true. I have seen it with my own eyes at tournaments. Half the stadium has no idea who's playing. They're just there because it's THE WORLD CUP. Capital letters. The brand is bigger than the teams now. FIFA has calculated it and they are making money off of it. The games of Curacao will be crowded. I guarantee it.

[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.

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.

Not just that his a terrible and a mediocre coach, even in his playing days, he was a below average player and was mostly known for his numerous fights and reckless challenges on the pitch. I can vividly remember one of his shameful outburst in the champions league when he went to hold Tottenham's coach on his throat, that was shameful and that's still what I remember him for. His now a coach and instead of him focusing on his job as a coach, he prefers to be a pundit who spends more time talking instead of training his players in how to be better on the pitch.

[Ale88]

It's really strange to see Curaçao in the World Cup and not Italy, but Curaçao is there on its own merit and will have its people, and I believe we will also see Americans and many other people from other countries watching Curaçao's games. The World Cup isn't just about watching games of the big national teams; it's about watching the World Cup games live. Many people who go to watch World Cup games don't actually watch soccer, but because they want to tell their friends they were watching World Cup games, they end up watching all the matches.

I don't want to dismiss what Curaçao did (I love their new away jersey by the way) but the only reason they manage to qualify is because all the other major teams, and I'm talking about United States, Mexico and Canada, did not play the qualification matches because they were automatically qualified as host countries. In a normal situation Curaçao would have never qualified. So kudos to them but I wouldn't say that they are there only thanks to their own merits because it's not like that. You can't leave out of the picture the fact that the 3 main teams didn't play.

[Sithara007]

I don't want to dismiss what Curaçao did (I love their new away jersey by the way) but the only reason they manage to qualify is because all the other major teams, and I'm talking about United States, Mexico and Canada, did not play the qualification matches because they were automatically qualified as host countries. In a normal situation Curaçao would have never qualified. So kudos to them but I wouldn't say that they are there only thanks to their own merits because it's not like that. You can't leave out of the picture the fact that the 3 main teams didn't play.

The stupid eligibility rules set by FIFA actually allowed Curaçao to qualify. Almost all of their players are based in the Netherlands and play football there. What complicates things here is that Curaçao is a territory that is governed by Netherlands. And therefore FIFA allows players with Dutch citizenship to represent Curaçao. As far as I know, there is no separate Curaçao citizenship. Almost all the players who represent Curaçao right now have at least partial Curaçaon descent. But FIFA need to specify how many such players can be admitted in a team. You can't build a team with 100% players who have some distant ancestry, and based out in a foreign country.

[8rch7]

The stupid eligibility rules set by FIFA actually allowed Curaçao to qualify. Almost all of their players are based in the Netherlands and play football there. What complicates things here is that Curaçao is a territory that is governed by Netherlands. And therefore FIFA allows players with Dutch citizenship to represent Curaçao. As far as I know, there is no separate Curaçao citizenship. Almost all the players who represent Curaçao right now have at least partial Curaçaon descent. But FIFA need to specify how many such players can be admitted in a team. You can't build a team with 100% players who have some distant ancestry, and based out in a foreign country.

Its not stupid regulation, I think all national team allow to naturalization players have blood or leaving at the new country for five years later in a row. If you disagree with the regulation adopting by FIFA naturalization the players for other national team you can compare with the France national team player list how most of them as origin payers born in France.
I don't know why many people dislike with Curacaon already qualifying to World Cup and based on their continent is not problem exactly comparison from Gennaro Gattuso after his national team not qualify although at phase group qualifying just loss two matches.

[YOSHIE]

I don't know why many people dislike with Curacaon already qualifying to World Cup and based on their continent is not problem exactly comparison from Gennaro Gattuso after his national team not qualify although at phase group qualifying just loss two matches.

List of countries that have qualified for the 2026 world cup.


Honestly, I am proud of the football team in Curaçao, they have proven to the world of football, that they can enter the 2026 world cup, this is the first time Curaçao has secured a ticket to the 2026 World Cup, this is the most valuable history for Curaçao.

Many countries want to achieve success so they can qualify for the 2026 World Cup finals, unfortunately to achieve that requires a long process. Just as Curacao did, they have overcome various obstacles and barriers on their way to the 2026 World Cup. I myself am amazed at Curacao, maybe everyone will be wide-eyed when they see Curacao enter the 2026 World Cup.

[Ale88]

Honestly, I am proud of the football team in Curaçao, they have proven to the world of football, that they can enter the 2026 world cup, this is the first time Curaçao has secured a ticket to the 2026 World Cup, this is the most valuable history for Curaçao.

Many countries want to achieve success so they can qualify for the 2026 World Cup finals, unfortunately to achieve that requires a long process. Just as Curacao did, they have overcome various obstacles and barriers on their way to the 2026 World Cup. I myself am amazed at Curacao, maybe everyone will be wide-eyed when they see Curacao enter the 2026 World Cup.

Not sure whether you even read my post above yours explaining how and why Curaçao managed to qualify. Anyway I'll give another explanation: in the 2nd qualification round they played against Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba and Barbados. Two teams out of five qualified for the 3rd qualification round where they faced Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Bermuda.

If facing those teams for you means "overcoming various obstacles and barriers" then we have a very different idea of that expression.

[AHOYBRAUSE]

Honestly, I am proud of the football team in Curaçao, they have proven to the world of football, that they can enter the 2026 world cup, this is the first time Curaçao has secured a ticket to the 2026 World Cup, this is the most valuable history for Curaçao.

Many countries want to achieve success so they can qualify for the 2026 World Cup finals, unfortunately to achieve that requires a long process. Just as Curacao did, they have overcome various obstacles and barriers on their way to the 2026 World Cup. I myself am amazed at Curacao, maybe everyone will be wide-eyed when they see Curacao enter the 2026 World Cup.

Not sure whether you even read my post above yours explaining how and why Curaçao managed to qualify. Anyway I'll give another explanation: in the 2nd qualification round they played against Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba and Barbados. Two teams out of five qualified for the 3rd qualification round where they faced Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Bermuda.

If facing those teams for you means "overcoming various obstacles and barriers" then we have a very different idea of that expression.

Nah, this guy is not reading anything, he was just writing the most generic post imaginable. If it wasn't so crazy I would even have said it might be AI created, but no AI spits out this nonsense. 
Unless he is from Curacao I see on reason for being oh so proud of the team, haha. In the end it's sports and whoever qualifies for something earned that opportunity to play, plain and simple.

[Ale88]

Honestly, I am proud of the football team in Curaçao, they have proven to the world of football, that they can enter the 2026 world cup, this is the first time Curaçao has secured a ticket to the 2026 World Cup, this is the most valuable history for Curaçao.

Many countries want to achieve success so they can qualify for the 2026 World Cup finals, unfortunately to achieve that requires a long process. Just as Curacao did, they have overcome various obstacles and barriers on their way to the 2026 World Cup. I myself am amazed at Curacao, maybe everyone will be wide-eyed when they see Curacao enter the 2026 World Cup.

Not sure whether you even read my post above yours explaining how and why Curaçao managed to qualify. Anyway I'll give another explanation: in the 2nd qualification round they played against Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba and Barbados. Two teams out of five qualified for the 3rd qualification round where they faced Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Bermuda.

If facing those teams for you means "overcoming various obstacles and barriers" then we have a very different idea of that expression.

Nah, this guy is not reading anything, he was just writing the most generic post imaginable. If it wasn't so crazy I would even have said it might be AI created, but no AI spits out this nonsense. 
Unless he is from Curacao I see on reason for being oh so proud of the team, haha. In the end it's sports and whoever qualifies for something earned that opportunity to play, plain and simple.

To be honest I read so many "empty" posts in year that I'm pretty sure several users are using AI, it's the only explanation. They don't express anything, they post generic information without any real meaning.
And I want to be clear: I have nothing against Curaçao, they played by the rules and they qualified, it simply bothers me when people call this qualification like some sort of miracle when basically they only played against a bunch of national teams from other small islands. Put them in a group with USA, Mexico or Canada and then let's see whether they qualify or not.

[Slow death]

I won't be watching many games on TV during this World Cup. Argentina and Portugal were very lucky; they have very weak teams. Especially Portugal; if they don't manage to advance to the next phase, they'll be seen as a big joke. No offense, but not beating Jamaica, Colombia, and Uzbekistan would be a joke. Those are national teams that I don't even know what they want in the World Cup; they were lucky to qualify, and I highly doubt that the federations of those three countries have any great objectives in this World Cup. Just qualifying is enough for them.

[Sithara007]

I won't be watching many games on TV during this World Cup. Argentina and Portugal were very lucky; they have very weak teams. Especially Portugal; if they don't manage to advance to the next phase, they'll be seen as a big joke. No offense, but not beating Jamaica, Colombia, and Uzbekistan would be a joke. Those are national teams that I don't even know what they want in the World Cup; they were lucky to qualify, and I highly doubt that the federations of those three countries have any great objectives in this World Cup. Just qualifying is enough for them.

You are grouping Colombia together with Jamaica and Uzbekistan? That shows your lack of knowledge on this topic. And from what I have seen, European users have been posting a lot about how boring a 48-team world cup would be. But I don't see such reactions from any other part of the world. The most important market will be United States and there the viewership will be much higher this time because they are hosting the matches. Lack of interest from Europe will be more than made up by the US market. And more Asian/African teams would mean higher interest from these regions as well.

[pewboy]

You are grouping Colombia together with Jamaica and Uzbekistan? That shows your lack of knowledge on this topic. And from what I have seen, European users have been posting a lot about how boring a 48-team world cup would be. But I don't see such reactions from any other part of the world. The most important market will be United States and there the viewership will be much higher this time because they are hosting the matches. Lack of interest from Europe will be more than made up by the US market. And more Asian/African teams would mean higher interest from these regions as well.

it is very true, clearly they are national teams that are very poor, and this says a lot about the importance given to these teams, it was preferred to give priority to very mediocre teams rather than legendary European teams, thus making the world cup much more boring, this is what happened

[LUCKMCFLY]

And I want to be clear: I have nothing against Curaçao, they played by the rules and they qualified, it simply bothers me when people call this qualification like some sort of miracle when basically they only played against a bunch of national teams from other small islands. Put them in a group with USA, Mexico or Canada and then let's see whether they qualify or not.

I think something: if Curacao qualified, it's because they're at the level of a World Cup, it's that simple, there's no other way. Anyone who wants to diminish their effort there, that's their problem. The important thing is that this country is in the World Cup, and in this World Cup there are some significant absences, one of them being Italy, so all this hasn't been easy. Each team suffered and now they're in this wonderful competition. Football has been producing many surprises lately, so this isn't strange to me anymore.

[X-ray]

Finally, FIFA has decided to reject Iran's request about the venue switch. I think this confirm Iran's participation will be anulled caused by they won't be playing at US, which was their opponent in this war.

Yet, i'm wondering what's gonna happen with the available spot left by them. I remember Iraq would be a potential club to replace Iran, but it's not yet clear. It seems FIFA may be reallocating this available spot for the highest bidder.

Basically, it's easy to fix Iran's problem by swapping their pot with South Korea. However, FIFA might be afraid of Trump.

[xLays]

Finally, FIFA has decided to reject Iran's request about the venue switch. I think this confirm Iran's participation will be anulled caused by they won't be playing at US, which was their opponent in this war.

Yet, i'm wondering what's gonna happen with the available spot left by them. I remember Iraq would be a potential club to replace Iran, but it's not yet clear. It seems FIFA may be reallocating this available spot for the highest bidder.

Basically, it's easy to fix Iran's problem by swapping their pot with South Korea. However, FIFA might be afraid of Trump.

Yes because of this news many people are saying it’s dangerous to attend World Cup games especially matches involving the US against any team.
I think they should only worry about thiswhen there is an actual scheduled matchup between the US and Iran. It also seems unlikely that both teams will reach the next round, so a clash between them is unlikely. For sure one of them will not go to knockout stage..