2030 WCQ for Concacaf released: https://www.concacaf.com/en/news/co...s-senior-national-team-competitions-calendar/
I'm certain they will be using two in each city. Everything I have heard previously says so. Why would they mention the Metropolitano if they were only using one stadium in Madrid? Bernabeu would so obviously beat it in competition that it wouldn't be worth including it. This is even more the case in Barcelona and in Lisbon the Estadio do Luz would clearly win over Sporting's ground. Wikipedia gets increasingly less reliable.
Not doubting what you're saying but I guess my question is, why use a second venue in Madrid and BCN when there is such a big gap b/w the best and second-best stadiums in those cities? Just play more matches in the Bernabeu and Nou Camp, I'd argue.
I understand your point. It would give more people the chance to attend some of the best and most famous football grounds in the world. The 2nd stadiums in each of those cities are still very good. Using those will keep the pitches in best condition. Although that probably isn't a factor with modern pitch technology. I'm glad a lot of matches will be in those three fantastic cities. It will help with the festival feel of the World Cup. A proper party. Especially as it is easy to get around Spain with their modern road and rail network. I reckon they could use two in Seville too. There used to be a rule that only one city could have two stadiums in a bid. That was non-sensical and was obviously scrapped for Qatar. It might be time to increase number of matches an individual stadium can host. In my fantasy English/British World Cup I would use three stadiums in London and two in Manchester. Provided there are enough hotel rooms there shouldn't be a hard limit on the number of matches in any city.
The Espanyol stadium is quite small though, or are they planning an upgrade? As it stands, having, say, six matches in Camp Nou and 4 in RCDE gives fewer people (under 800 thousand) a reason to stay in BCN than just having 8 matches in Camp Nou (~850k). The Metropolitano is a nice venue, though its quite far from the city center. Make sure you have enough money on your metro card for the return trip before setting out on that journey (I made that mistake once). Having Metropolitano as a venue or not, I don't think impacts the 'festival feel" in Madrid, as you pretty much must make MAD or BCN your first stop when travelling intercontinentally to anywhere in Spain (similarly Lisboa for Portugal). But yeah... there is a better argument for having Metropolitano and Sporting Club's stadium as a venue than RCDE (imo).
Anybody know more about the continued detention without trial of Senegal supporters following the Afcon final last month? The final was a farce with obvious evidence of Moroccan cheating, including repeated attempts to steal the Senegalese goalkeeper's towel in the pouring rain. The actions of some Senegal supporters cannot be condoned but justice should be done. If they cannot provide lawyers then simply deport them. Morocco looks to be a very self-interested host with no qualms about openly cheating and I would minimise the matches they host. I don't know the bias of this source but others report similar info. https://punchng.com/18-senegalese-supporters-held-after-afcon-final-start-hunger-strike/
Probably a stupid question... but is it already sure how many spots for the World Cup 2030 every confederation receives? Will there be no changes compared to the current World Cup?
FIFA hasn't said anything but CONCACAF practically confirmed that they will still have 6 spots + 1 play-off for 2030 WC so chances are that the current allocation also stays for the 2030.
Seems like a logical and balanced format. Glad to see they moved away from the 5-team group with single-round-robin nonsense.
with 4 machtes a day, an intervall of 3h between 2 matches, and no closed-roof domes, WC 2030 will propably be held a lot in heat and sunshine. I guess, we see kick off times at 13h, 16h, 19h and 22h UTC+2 in Spain (CEST) with Portugal and Morocco having UTC+1.
What a very superficial viewpoint! comes from limited knowledge of what is actually happening, let's start with that silly towel thing, you should know that in Africa (especially in Sub-Saharan countries), they believe in magic (the bad kind), even high standard people believes in it, after Nigeria lost their WC26 qualifier match held in Morocco, one of the first things their coach talked about while he was walking out of the pitch is that there were some Voodoo from the Congolese team (lol), so the Moroccan players were taking the towels because they thought that the opponents players believes in magic which usually either is a liquid spread on the pitch or some written papers put near he goal, sometimes inside the towels, so if they'd take them then the opponents might think that whatever hidden power helping them is no longer around therefore affecting their focus, and this actions been happening in Africa since I could remember, I personally don't believe in this but I always see people on some African game spreading something on the pitch or doing something weird in the goal, see this funny video in some game in Africa where someone removes the so called "magic" and the goalkeeper run after him HERE , Oh and since we're talking about Senegal, here's another video of some U20 AFCON Final where the Senegalese players throwed something inside the opponent's goal, you telling me that these people don't believe in this stuff? HERE, I could list more examples if I have time (look up the story of ivory coast juju AFCON 1992) , trust me as much as I love African football this this the thing that I hate the most, and yes what the Moroccan players did was wrong and unprofessional and they apologized and was fined for it, but let's not give it more that what it's actually was, you say cheating? really? lol. Senegalese fans received sentences ranging from 3 months to one year. but what those fans did is unacceptable and should not be tolerated because it has tarnished the reputation of African football, if anything the Moroccan team was wronged for the referee not respecting the rules and not giving yellow cards to all withdrawing Senegalese players as the law says, after they walked out for 15 minutes refusing an official justified VAR call, which could have lost them two players for cards accumulation. This media campaign against Morocco started way before AFCON by the Algerian media and their bots because they lost the bid to Morocco by a landslide, questioning if Morocco can deliver stadiums on time, once they delivered them on time they questioned the ability for Moroccan stadiums to stand in heavy rain, after successfully bearing tons of water they said "oh look there are many empty seats!" as if the previous editions were always packing lol, after the audience started attending they said that they were let in for free, and when there are opportunists, they see it as an opportunity and follow the campaign. once Morocco in knockout phase the "the world versus Morocco" campaign was officially launched, promoting lies about how Morocco is buying referees, which was debunked later by a European report later HERE, imaging that a World Cup semi-finalist needs to cheat to win at home! while in reality they were just scared of facing Morocco and wanted it eliminated. This frenzied media campaign is only due to the enviousness some people harbor because of what Moroccan football humbly achieved in recent years, 4th in WC22, 3rd in Olympics, 1st in U20 WC, 1st in Arab cup, World's top 10, WC30 Co-Host and more..., imaging that they called 2025 CAF awards "the Moroccan awards" because of Moroccan players and coaches dominated it, they can't compete with you but yet they want your players and coaches to not be recognized for their efforts, it hurt at first to know that Africans are not having each other backs in football like in other places, but ten I stopped caring Last thing about you demanding to minimize the matches Morocco hosts, let me tell you that if it wasn't for Morocco a lot of CAF competitions in recent years might not even have happened, a lot of WC qualifiers matches and AFCON qualifiers matches was played in Morocco because some teams didn't meet stadium standards, this 2025 AFCON was the most in sponsors in history, CAF is now struggling to put AFCON 2027 on time because some hosts are not ready and asked for postponing, therefore the 2028 edition might not happen, CAF is now asking Morocco to host the upcoming women AFCON, whenever CAF wants something they call Morocco, and all we get is ungratefulness from some sides, nowadays we Moroccans don't wanna host anything anymore, let them go back to the mediocre organizational levels where teams will be put inside residential complexes like it was in some previous editions, instead of 4-5 starts hotels, instead of giving one training facility for each team which BTW happened for the first time in ever Africa, I remember the Egyptian coach was complaining about having to move from Agadir to Tangier by train to play the semi-final like it was tough or something, he forgot to mention that it was the fastest train in all Africa, I'm sure next edition he will miss these convinces. My friend we are people that loves football, and wants to enjoy it in its true colors, away from this nonsense, congrats to whoever does something good either technical or organizational, let's learn and get a move on.
You do yourself no favours. You admit that Morocco's aim in stealing towels, from Nigeria's goalkeeper in the semi-final as well from the Senegalese in the final, was to put them off their game. A pathetic excuse for pathetic behaviour. Who cares if someone thinks a towel has magic properties? Laugh at them if you want but a towel is necessary for a goalkeeper in wet weather. Stealing it is cheating. Morocco are cheats.
Yes I already agreed it was wrong and these images have been in Africa since ever you just heard of it now, BUT just to be clear, based on the official laws of the game, a towel is not considered part of a goalkeeper's official equipment, nor is it a recognized piece of protective gear, be it rain or sweat or what not, Olivier Safari, the President of the CAF Referees Committee, addressed the controversy, stating that towels are not considered part of a goalkeeper’s official equipment and should not be used to influence the game. trust me if this would lead CAF to prevent towels in the future it will hurt so many superstitions players lol. in the end, This matter was blown out of proportion and linked to the frenzied campaign against the host country waged by some for known reasons mostly political, and that's what I was trying to clear in my previous discussion, but if the silly towel thing is what you mean by cheating, then that's fine suit yourself.
Yeah, I think those will be the most common kick off times. There is precedent for 22h local time kickoffs as it was done often in Qatar and I think even once for the 2026 WC. Also, quite commonly done for club matches in Spain early in the season (August). There are two regions in Spain (Basque and Galicia), one in Portugal (Porto) and, I believe, one in Morocco where it doesn't get so hot, plus the Bernabeu which has air conditioning. Could reserve many of the 13h and 16h kickoffs for these 5 regions that combined account for 6 venues. The good thing is that unlike WC'26 all the matches from the round of 16 onward can be played after 19h.