While the U.S. seems pretty confident it’ll lock down the bid to host the 2026 World Cup along with Mexico and Canada, never count out FIFA’s ability to shun the responsible decision by opting for the absurd. How else do you explain Russia and Qatar hosting the next two World Cups? Or these five awful hosts?
With that in mind, here are five places that FIFA is probably considering for the next few World Cups.
It’s do or die time in South American World Cup qualifying, and Thursday features some all-important matches between Uruguay-Argentina, Brazil-Ecuador and Chile-Paraguay. For Chile and Paraguay, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Paraguay’s World Cup hopes are hanging by a thread with only four matchdays remaining. Defeat at the Estadio Monumental in the Chilean capital of Santiago would essentially put an end to any hopes of participating in Russia, but Los Guaranies can take heart from the fact that they defeated La Roja 2-1 in their last encounter.
With four match days left in the final CONCACAF World Cup qualifying round, Mexico and the United States are on the brink of ensuring their inclusion in Russia next summer. Both could start booking accommodations by Tuesday if things fall their way.
Mexico leads the group with 14 points and it would take a massive collapse for El Tri to fail to qualify. The U.S., in third with eight points, three back of Costa Rica and one ahead of Panama. The top three automatically qualify for the World Cup while the fourth-place team must play an Asian country in a playoff to reach Russia.
Major League Soccer may be a retirement home for some, but David Villa affirmed last week you can still factor into one of the best national teams in the world while plying your trade in MLS.
So why can’t Sebastian Giovinco get a recall from Italy?
Villa earned a spot on the Spanish roster for the two upcoming World Cup qualifiers after starting the season with 19 league goals for New York City FC. These aren’t throw-away qualifiers either; Spain faces Italy for first place in UEFA Group G on Saturday.
Up until their quarterfinal defeat to Brazil, no side was more thoroughly entertaining at the 2014 World Cup than Colombia. James Rodriguez was the tournament’s standout performer and plenty of additional firepower was provided by the likes of Juan Cuadrado, Jackson Martinez and Teofilo Gutierrez.
FIFA doesn’t have a good record of awarding World Cups to the best countries, instead opting to award the world’s premier sporting event to nations with questionable backgrounds, from Mussolini’s fascist Italy to Argentina’s military junta.
Barring nuclear war, the 2018 World Cup will be hosted by Russia, a nation that has in the last decade invaded multiple countries, illegally annexed territory, led insurrections in border nations, murdered opposition journalists and denied rights of the LGBT community. Oh and that whole U.S. election thing that has yet to be sorted out.
New York City FC striker David Villa has earned a recall to the Spanish national team for crunch World Cup qualifiers against Italy (Sept. 2) and Liechtenstein (Sept. 5). Villa last played for La Furia Roja at the 2014 World Cup, but he retired after the nation’s group stage exit.
Russian hackers Fancy Bears dropped a complete non-story this week regarding the use of banned substances in soccer. You see, the typical SHOCKING TRUTHS UNCOVERED AND REVEALED that we’ve come to associate with hacking were nonexistent in this information dump, which is insane given football’s history of being corrupt to the core.
Wayne Rooney announced his retirement from international football on Wednesday, bringing a close to a tumultuous 14-year England career. While Rooney goes down in the record books as England’s all time leading goalscorer and most capped outfield player, his legacy is still a polarizing one given the profligacy of the Three Lions during that period.
The USMNT's World Cup qualification margin for error just got that much smaller, with the news that center back John Brooks would be out for the remainder of qualification. Brooks sustained a thigh injury during a friendly while playing for Wolfsburg in Germany.