Anonymous wrote:My big question: do all three countries automatically get invites to the World Cup? The usual tradition is that the host country is automatically granted a WC berth. Neither the US nor Canada made the WC this year - three teams from the Americas will crowd out other contenders from this region.

I’m guessing the host countries will get a spot. I heard they are adding four more groups of four to the group play round.

Anonymous wrote:Let's hope the US makes it into the World Cup that year, lol. So sad.

Agreed, it would be embarrassing to host but not play. Hopefully we'll make the cut for 2026!

You're reminding me of the year 2000 when Netherlands and Belgium jointly hosted the European championships. The English fans rioted in Belgium but were uncharacteristically calm in the Netherlands. Police attributed it to pot being legal in the Netherlands - having a calming effect on the soccer hooligans.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/euro2000/teams/england/790392.stm

Anonymous wrote:My big question: do all three countries automatically get invites to the World Cup? The usual tradition is that the host country is automatically granted a WC berth. Neither the US nor Canada made the WC this year - three teams from the Americas will crowd out other contenders from this region.

this is what I am wondering as well

Let's hope the US makes it into the World Cup that year, lol. So sad.

My big question: do all three countries automatically get invites to the World Cup? The usual tradition is that the host country is automatically granted a WC berth. Neither the US nor Canada made the WC this year - three teams from the Americas will crowd out other contenders from this region.

60 of the 80 games in the U.S. Games are already is spread from Boston to Los Angeles. Adding Toronto, Mexico City, etc. isn't a big deal at all. I'm surprised this even came up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The same way it's going to work this week in Russia with 11 cities hosting. Every day there are games in a 3-4 different cities, but the same city only hosts a game every 3-4 days. They are scheduled so a team has a few days between games = plenty of time to travel.

It'll make it more expensive, though, won't it? For each team I mean. It'll mean more fans will get a chance to travel for the games, but it seems to add a much bigger expense for the teams. Unless they break it out like the NCAA tournament in seeds, so once seeded you'll just remain in that country until time to travel to another country to play the ultimate winner of that seed.

Oh yeah. Those poor, poor soccer teams/players.

Let's just hope that our relations with our neighbors to the north and south are signficantly improved by 2026!

And not much different than Brazil and Russia since the distances between venues was/is pretty big and required flights between them. The WC is played over a month so the travel isn’t that big a deal (other than expensive).

WHen the US hosted in 1994 it was in lots of different cities. This isn't much different.

Anonymous wrote:The same way it's going to work this week in Russia with 11 cities hosting. Every day there are games in a 3-4 different cities, but the same city only hosts a game every 3-4 days. They are scheduled so a team has a few days between games = plenty of time to travel.

It'll make it more expensive, though, won't it? For each team I mean. It'll mean more fans will get a chance to travel for the games, but it seems to add a much bigger expense for the teams. Unless they break it out like the NCAA tournament in seeds, so once seeded you'll just remain in that country until time to travel to another country to play the ultimate winner of that seed.

I think this makes much more sense than one country hosting and building a ton of crap that never gets used again. It's SO much better to use existing stadiums and just spruce them up and build some infrastructure.

But I guess we'll find out. I assume each country will have 2-3 cities that are the main host. Good luck to those in the CDMX because you will just sit in traffic all damn day and miss the games entirely...

The same way it's going to work this week in Russia with 11 cities hosting. Every day there are games in a 3-4 different cities, but the same city only hosts a game every 3-4 days. They are scheduled so a team has a few days between games = plenty of time to travel.

US, Mexico and Canada just won a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup. But how does that work? Morning games in Montreal followed by evenings in San Francisco? And ceremonies in Guadalajara?