2026 World Cup - USA/Mexico/Canada

[cwy21]

I started the Qatar thread eleven (!) years ago and so lets start the next one.

What do we know?

The tournament will kickoff in June 2026 and will be expanding from 32 to 48 nations.

The allocation for spots will look like this:

• Europe gets 16 (up from 13)
• Asia gets 8 (up from 4.5)
• Africa gets 9 (up from 5)
• North/Central America gets 6 including the three hosts (up from 3.5)
• South America gets 6 (up from 4.5)
• Oceania gets 1 (up from 0.5)

The final two spots will be determined from an international playoff tournament. Every confederation except UEFA gets a playoff spot and CONCACAF gets an additional one as host. The six playoff teams will be ranked by FIFA ranking with the bottom four sides playing each other before facing the top two ranked teams for a World Cup spot.

There will be 16 host cities with all of the stadiums already existing. The stadium in Toronto will be expanding from 30,000 to 45,000 capacity for the event.

Canada will host in Vancouver and Toronto.
Mexico will host in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey
United States will host in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Miami.


What do we not know?

The format. The original plan was to have 16 groups of three. This obviously raises a ton of issues. Multiple reports suggest FIFA is open to changing to 12 groups of 4. The round of 32 still seems to be in play which will result in eight third place teams advancing. If this format ends up being approved, the tournament will expand from 80 to 102 matches.

 

[carmeldevil]

Would definitely recommend going to Monterrey if you can. The city is gorgeous and the stadium view is quite something.

 

[WorcesterTHFC]

Someone needs to tell Infantino (or whoever had the idea in the first place) that less is more.

 

[easley91]

My years of staying up for wrestling has prepared me for the time difference of this World Cup so we better qualify and have midnight kick offs.

 

[Marty]

My years of staying up for wrestling has prepared me for the time difference of this World Cup so we better qualify and have midnight kick offs.

If a game kicks off at primetime 9 PM Western time (SF, LA, Seattle, Vancouver) you're looking at kickoff at 5 AM UK time.

How they divide the games across time zones in terms of catering to Asian, European or American audiences will be very interesting to see.

 

[taidgh]

If a game kicks off at primetime 9 PM Western time (SF, LA, Seattle, Vancouver) you're looking at kickoff at 5 AM UK time.

How they divide the games across time zones in terms of catering to Asian, European or American audiences will be very interesting to see.

I don't know that it will be 9PM kick off times. That's not exactly primetime anyway, and cuts out half of the US/Canada (midnight there), and is early morning in much of Europe, Africa, and South America.

For reference, kick off times for the 1994 World Cup were 9:30, 1:00, and 4:30 (all Western time). With more teams, there will obviously be another timeslot needed, so maybe looking at something like 8:30am/11:30pm/2;30pm/5:30pm Western time?

 

[SirHarryHotspur]

I started the Qatar thread eleven (!) years ago and so lets start the next one.

After human rights in Qatar , lets start on Mexico, I see it's quite dangerous for journalists , know any football reporters we want to get rid of......

Reporters Without Borders ranks Mexico as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. The NGO Global Witness currently ranks Mexico as the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists. Most killings of journalists and environmental activists in Mexico are never properly investigated.

Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador Is A Human Rights Disaster

Reporters Without Borders ranks Mexico as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. The NGO Global Witness currently ranks Mexico as the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists.

www.forbes.com

 

[cwy21]

I don't know that it will be 9PM kick off times. That's not exactly primetime anyway, and cuts out half of the US/Canada (midnight there), and is early morning in much of Europe, Africa, and South America.

For reference, kick off times for the 1994 World Cup were 9:30, 1:00, and 4:30 (all Western time). With more teams, there will obviously be another timeslot needed, so maybe looking at something like 8:30am/11:30pm/2;30pm/5:30pm Western time?

To get 72 group stage games done in a similar amount of time as Qatar you would need to do 6 games per day in the first two rounds of the group stage.

So perhaps something like 1200/1400/1600/1800/2000/2200 Eastern time with the later games occurring further west.

 

[taidgh]

To get 72 group stage games done in a similar amount of time as Qatar you would need to do 6 games per day in the first two rounds of the group stage.

So perhaps something like 1200/1400/1600/1800/2000/2200 Eastern time with the later games occurring further west.

Yeah, I don't see how they can do it otherwise unless the tournament is longer.

 

[UncleBuck]

Load of bollocks if you ask me, I didn’t realise it was over three countries until the other day.
Who agreed to that? Everyone banging on about carbon footprints with Qatar building stadiums and facilities in the desert then you have this served up!
Not only that but Mexico and the US have both individually hosted both WC’s in the last forty years yet here we are with the facilities and stadia to host individually yet we haven’t done it sixty years.
Absolutely bonkers.

 

[Marty]

World Cup 2026 to have four-team groups and 104 matches

FIFA is set to confirm a new format for the 2026 World Cup, extending the tournament to 104 games over likely 39 days. The decision will be approved at a meeting of the FIFA Council later on Tuesday in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, where world football’s bosses have gathered for their annual congress...

theathletic.com

World Cup 2026 format expands again with four-team groups and 104 matches​

FIFA is set to confirm a new format for the 2026 World Cup, extending the tournament to 104 games over likely 39 days.

The decision will be approved at a meeting of the FIFA Council later on Tuesday in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, where world football’s bosses have gathered for their annual congress on Thursday.

Hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, the 2026 edition was already going to be the biggest World Cup, with 48 teams, and will now be the longest, too.

The original idea was to have 16 groups of three, with the top two processing to a 32-team knockout competition. That format would have involved 80 games, up from the 64-game format FIFA has used since 1998.

But groups of three have two significant drawbacks: you lose the excitement of the final round of simultaneous group-stage games, and you increase the chance of the two teams in the last game colluding to engineer the result they need.

The most memorable example of the latter, the so-called “Disgrace of Gijon”, took place at the 1982 World Cup in Gijon, when West Germany and Austria effectively agreed on a 1-0 win for the Germans, as that was good enough for both to advance at Algeria’s expense.

Memories of this and other similar scandals had clearly faded at FIFA, though, as it approved the 16×3 format when it agreed to expand the World Cup in 2017.


GO DEEPER
After Qatar, the issues that could influence the 2026 World Cup

The wisdom of that decision was called into question by some academics but it was not until the last World Cup in Qatar that the calls to reconsider the format grew too loud to ignore, with FIFA president Gianni Infantino confirming the rethink on the eve of the final.

The new format is for 12 groups of four, with the eight best third-placed teams joining the top two in the knockout rounds. This restores the jeopardy of the final round of group-stage games and reduces the chance of collusion.

The extra week will be found by cutting the pre-tournament release period from 23 days to 16, which is slightly less than previous summer tournaments but twice as long as players were given to prepare for the World Cup in Qatar. Although the official date for the opening match has not yet been announced, FIFA is on course to maintain the tournament’s “footprint” to 56 days, 16 days before it starts and then 39 days of competition.

What this change means for the allocation of games between the three host nations remains to be seen, as the US was staging 60 games in the original format, with Canada and Mexico getting 10 each.

Great that they've ditched the horrendous three team groups idea, if nothing else.

 

[taidgh]

The poor players though. No rest at all.

 

['O Zio]

World Cup 2026 to have four-team groups and 104 matches

FIFA is set to confirm a new format for the 2026 World Cup, extending the tournament to 104 games over likely 39 days. The decision will be approved at a meeting of the FIFA Council later on Tuesday in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, where world football’s bosses have gathered for their annual congress...

theathletic.com

World Cup 2026 format expands again with four-team groups and 104 matches​

Great that they've ditched the horrendous three team groups idea, if nothing else.

Definitely the right decision to scrap the three team groups, but i still think expanding the number of teams in general is a terrible idea. Presumably just a way for Infantino to curry favour with the smaller nations rather than being because anyone actually likes the idea.

 

[Marty]

Definitely the right decision to scrap the three team groups, but i still think expanding the number of teams is a terrible idea. Presumably just a way for Infantino to curry favour with the smaller nations rather than being because anyone actually likes the idea.

100% a power move to ensure Africa and Asia stay on his side.

 

['O Zio]

To get 72 group stage games done in a similar amount of time as Qatar you would need to do 6 games per day in the first two rounds of the group stage.

So perhaps something like 1200/1400/1600/1800/2000/2200 Eastern time with the later games occurring further west.

Is there a reason they can't have multiple games at the same time? I guess theres potential implications for the commercial side of things, but I doubt anyone is going to watch 6 games/day no matter how much they like football.

Obviously you wouldn't want two of the bigger-ticket fixtures clashing, but they could jimmy it so that the other match was always one of the ones most people around the world wouldn't watch anyway then it works. E.g. It wouldn't really matter if England vs Italy clashed with Vietnam vs New Zealand or something.

Edit: Don't mean to sound like a pompous European/Englander. What I mean is only a tiny % of people would be dissuaded from watching the former just because the latter is on at the same time.

 

[Marty]

Is there a reason they can't have multiple games at the same time? I guess theres potential implications for the commercial side of things, but I doubt anyone is going to watch 6 games/day no matter how much they like football.

Obviously you wouldn't want two of the bigger-ticket fixtures clashing, but they could jimmy it so that the other match was always one of the ones most people around the world wouldn't watch anyway then it works. E.g. It wouldn't really matter if England vs Italy clashed with Vietnam vs New Zealand or something.

Edit: Don't mean to sound like a pompous European/Englander. What I mean is only a tiny % of people would be dissuaded from watching the former just because the latter is on at the same time.

The only games that will be on simultaneously are the two final games in every group.

It's all about money. More time slots = more TV revenue. Simple.

They've implied per that Athletic article I linked to above that they'll stretch the tournament so it goes over 39 days instead of today's 32 so that'll take care of some time slot issues. I doubt they'll need six, four is far more likely.

 

[cwy21]

BTW South American qualifying starts this evening.

 

[Tucker]

I have fond memories of USA 94, so looking forward to this.

 

[Marty]

 

[yankspurs]

You can tell it’s a USSF/FIFA idea when it’s as bad as this. Because wow is this a bad one. Jerry World is in Arlington. 20-25 minutes away from Dallas with no transit options & little accommodations. NY is a bad idea also. There is no stadium in NYC & the one being built is only a 30k seater & not projected to be ready until after the WC. So the game would be in the Meadowlands. At least there are transit options though. They should look at Chicago or the Rose Bowl. If they want Texas, it should be at the Cotton Bowl or in Houston.