FIFA World Cup '26: News & Analysis

The minimalist logo and its host cities variations are nice. Give it some time and you might start to like it too.

 

So Santa Clara, California has been awarded the 2026 Super Bowl (2nd week of February).
I wonder if this will hinder their chances of hosting any matches during the Confederation FIFA World Cup Playoff tournament a month later.

 

https://www.cafonline.com/press-rel...fa-world-cup-2026-qualifiers-calendar-and-ann

this holds the detail of the caf qualifiers.

so the Intercontinental Playoff Tournament is in March 2026

But how wil they make the groups at the final draw?

Let us assume one IC playoff path consists of Conmebol + Concacaf + OFC and ghe other path of CAF + AFC + Concacaf.

Let us continue with FIFA keep the rrule to avoid clashes between teams of one confed at group stage (except Europe).

So what if a group then by draw has alread inside Canada, Mexico or USA.

Those groups then cannot have an IC Playoff Team as both paths might result in a Concacaf Team making it.

This will become very complex in the final world cup draw with a lot of special rules.

 

Good point. The draw would be much easier if you allowed up to two teams from a confed in a group. I guess you can keep the rule of at least one UEFA team in each group.

 

I guess it will be much easier than before. Apart from UEFA it will be easy to control the draw to keep it at max one team from the same confederation in one group.

They could prevent two UEFA teams and one CONMEBOL team in the same group if they want, no clue if that is going to happen

 

Main takeaway here is that we will have placeholders again during the draw (ugh)

It is not that hard with 12 team pots actually, I coded a wc draw simulator using the 2022 rules [at least 1 euro team per group, only one team per confederation except for UEFA which can have 2] and expanded it to 48 teams (using the pots that I did in this thread) and the draw didn't have problems filling all the groups with the constraints.

Assuming they will both go in Pot 4, it is just 95% certain that the playoff teams will only be drawn in one of the groups with 2 European teams already.

The real jokers here are European playoff teams as placeholders if they are placed in Pot 4. Having them in Pot 4 can make some groups unnecessary difficult (one groups gets the placeholder of the Italy - Portugal path, while other group gets the Austria - Wales path)

[Didn't make tests with European placeholders in Pot 4 tho, only with the inter-confederation playoffs you mentioned it (CONMEBOL + CONCACAF+ OFC & CAF + AFC + CONCACAF)]

Moving Morocco to pot 1 instead of Portugal practically ensures that the (CONMEBOL + CONCACAF+ OFC) gets drawn with them as long as they don't draw a pot 2 CONMEBOL team

 

Doubt it. Despite being minimalist, FIFA's name is on it twice!

And even if I see it enough such that it stops becoming ugly, I think its the first logo in history that doesn't have anything to do with the host country(ies). So, its just poor and uncreative from that standpoint.

 

They are going away from the countries things to focus on the cities.
Which emphasizes my earlier point that the World Cup is probably just going to be a bunch of cities hosting a tournament on rotating continents (like Euro 2020) than anything else in the future.

 

Our resident FIFA representative is back at it again.

 

There's lots of things I hate about FIFA.
I am just calling it as I see it and not sugarcoating it.

 

Why would you want to do that? If that happens it will be three teams from 3 different pots.

 

I was wondering.

They should still keep groups to no more than 2 uefa per group, and no more than 1 from any other confederation.

With 12 groups it still works.

 

ok so there are for sure 16 european teams and 4 of them are joining via play offs.

each uefa team will be in 1 of the 12 groups and the 4 play off winners will join 1 of them.

as for. the non uefa playoffs.

there a 6 confeds.
always 3 confeds are on a wild card with the total of 2 wild cards.

as each group after the draw. from pot 1,2 and 3.has at least 1 uefa team, it will also. have 2 from 2 other confeds.

let us say, this is caf and conmebol.

that means pot for team can be either 1 uefa/uefa (always) or 1 from afc, concacaf, ofc

other variants

concacaf + caf
-> icpo ofc, afc or conmebol
concacaf + afc
-> icpo conmebol, caf or ofc
and so on.

 

That sounds terrible. Would sap a lot of the energy and spirit that's associated with the World Cup.

 

i am totally with you.

it is cities like Rustenburg, Cuiaba, Kaiserslautern or Palermo that make a WC special.

Big City WCs with only Paris, London or else make me yann till dawn

 

It may be terrible in some ways. But awesome in other ways. I do not see it as a net negative or positive.

 

This may be true BUT we would see cites and countries host World Cups that have never hosted before. Some with real futbol history. I think It would awesome to see a World Cup match in Amsterdam for instance.

 

And let's not assume that only Big cities would host. Baku hosted Euro matches for Pete's sake and there are plenty of cities bigger.

 

This draw rule which prevents teams from the same confederation from playing each other in the group stage - which goes back decades, incidentally, - could be discontinued now given that representation between confederations is more equitable. For example, the last 24-team field in 1994 featured 13 UEFA teams while the first 48-team one in 2026 will feature only 16.

Ending this confederation protection in the group stage would also help increase the diversity of teams qualifying for the KO stage because it is more likely that UEFA and Conmebol teams will eliminate each other in the group stage.

 

I mentioned this years ago in the 48 team expansion thread but I really do not mind if they get rid of the confederation playing each other rule.
Still don't even mind if they eliminate the draw by setting the groups up strictly based on FIFA rankings.
It would be clean cut and would not be as dramatic but it would be fair. (I know people hate FIFA rankings but you'd get over it.)

 

I really don't want teams from the same confederation in groups stage of the world cup.

Conmebol teams play each other like 372819 times per cycle and the least thing I want is facing conmebol teams again in Group Stage.

Countries from different confederations barely play each other in competitive matches and removing the geographical restriction for the draw will only aggravate the problem.

 

I think it would be a question of keeping the draw rule or scrapping it for everyone.

While the general preference - and what makes FIFA competitions particularly attractive - are the intercontinental games, the question is whether you guarantee to have more of them in the group stage by keeping the draw rule or increasing the possibility of having more of them in the KO stage by teams from the same confederation eliminating each other in the group stage.

 

That is an excellent point. After reading that, I doubt the draw rule will be scrapped.

 

In that regard it would be redundant and repetitive which can be boring.
On the other side of the coin a Group with two CONMEBOL teams would favor both of them to advance. It would probably mean there is no Euro team in the Group (if using the FIFA ranking method I proposed) and facing CONCACAF and Asian teams which CONMEBOL usually beat.

 

"separate but equal" will not work as "diverse groups" do.

Federations of underachieving Concacaf teams will proudly point to the honor of being slaughtered in WC knockout rounds, just because they passed WC group stage while avoiding UEFA/Conmebol rivals.

The top senior tournament should keep a high bar for WC knockouts, otherwise UEFA/Conmebol will throw another tantrum about leaving WC competition.