FIFA World Cup (Men's)

The FIFA World Cup began on Wednesday. Let me rephrase that. The FIFA Interactive World Cup, the FIFA 17 video game form of the world’s greatest sporting competition, began on Wednesday. 

After months of qualifying and a mere month until the next game is released, the FIFA 17 championships got underway in London. Starting with 32 players, the field was whittled down to 16 after 112 matches on Wednesday, setting the stage for the final two days of competition on Thursday and Friday.

The United Bid Committee, the organizers of the joint 2026 World Cup bid from the United States, Canada and Mexico, announced the 49 stadiums and 44 cities across the three countries that are currently being considered for the event. With 20-25 venues anticipated in the final decision, there’s certainly a lot for the committee to consider before submitting their final bid by March 16, 2018.

In a World Cup year, it’s only natural that national team regulars are put under the microscope every week. With only 23 spots available on the final World Cup roster, each and every week during the club season is a personal battle and test of merit. In that sense, no USMNT player has been failing as spectacularly as Los Angeles Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes.

Friday was the deadline for FIFA to accept bids to host the 2026 World Cup, the first to be awarded since scandal rocked the organization following Russia and Qatar controversially winning the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively. The U.S. had already turned in a joint bid with Mexico and Canada that’s expected to win easily, but at the last minute Morocco decided to throw its hat into the ring. 

Newly appointed Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli has wasted no time putting his own stamp on the national team by recalling once-exiled Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi and dropping the oft-criticized Gonzalo Higuain for crucial upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela.

Icardi is joined in Argentina’s attack by Lionel Messi, Paulo Dybala, Joaquin Correa and Sergio Aguero, who was left out of Sampaoli’s first Argentina squad for friendlies against Brazil and Singapore back in June.

Iran is one of three clubs to have qualified for the 2018 World Cup, but that could be in jeopardy.

According to the latest FIFA World Rankings, Switzerland will approach the 2018 FIFA World Cup bracketed amongst the traditional favorites of Brazil, Germany and Argentina. Those are the only three nations above them in the latest August rankings. It’s easy to laugh at the Swiss opening up a sizable gap over the traditional European powers of France, Spain, Italy and England, but there’s no reason to not have them pegged as dark horses in Russia.