News: Active discussions going for USA to host 2028 copa america

You should start betting heavily agiainst the US. Start at the U20 CONCACAF Championship that's starting in a couple weeks. Those kids must be extra soft. The US's group is, funnily enough, the hardest one; I'm sure the Cubans are about to obliterate us.

 

Yup.

But ultimately...............its up to CONMEBOL.

We were hearing for a while that the Gold Cup was also going to be expanded with "select guests."

That hasn't happened to a great degree. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the like have been there.

 

Except they're not, because you don't get on the field at clubs like Milan, Juventus, or any EPL club by being a spineless coward.

Now, has the current group demonstrated repeatedly that they have trouble tapping into the dawg mentality when they're with the national team? Yes. But that's what, 10% of their time?

They have the ability, so the question becomes how do we bring it out for the US?

I don't know--and if anyone can do it it's probably Poch, who was a dawg as a player and showed signs of progress on this front before it all fell apart vs Belgium--but I do think not having had the forging experience of going down to places like Honduras, El Salvador, even Jamaica and coming back with 3 points hurt this group. And we'll be back in WCQs for 2030, don't have a choice on that, but I think we can expand on those experiences by regularly playing in Copa Americas in South America--perhaps a bit less chaotic of an atmosphere than road WCQs in CONCACAF unless we happen to draw the host team, but tougher opposition on the field.

I look at it this way:

WCQs - Very high intensity, very high stakes, generally low to moderate caliber of opposition

Copa America (in the US) - Moderate intensity, high stakes, moderate to very high opposition

Copa America (in South America) - Moderate to high intensity (very high if we happen to play the host), high stakes, moderate to very high opposition

Friendlies - Low intensity, low stakes, opposition can be literally anyone so we should schedule the toughest teams we can for every window (with a bias toward European, African, Asian, or South American teams in that order)

Gold Cup/Nations League - Low intensity, moderate stakes, low to moderate opposition. Gold Cup is good for casting a wide net on the player pool, identifying guys who may be able to play at the international level, and giving them a taste of games with some stakes but with training wheels. NL is only 4 games over 2 windows and typically culminates with a packed house game against Mexico, so worth bringing our top available players for that

 

How about none of the kleptocracies get it, not Saudi, not Qatar,not Russia, not the US

 

I would assume somebody, maybe somebody's got fired over that.

 

Most Gold Cups, or at least a lot of them over the years have had a guest or two, I remember being eliminated by Brazil in '03, and Qatar was there in a couple of the past ones.

 

Issue with Gold Cup Guest teams is that teams will have often meaningful games that same summer. The USMNT hasn't even brought their A teams to Gold Cups when they have other competitions happening the same summer, I don't know why we would expect teams from other continents to?

Also Saudi Arabia and Qatar pull almost exclusively from their domestic leagues so there's likely going to be less push back from clubs about players leaving for an extra competition.

Copa America is different, and something almost every invited guest would view as an incredible chance.

 

Also the big college stadiums usually have bench seating for much of their capacity.

 

A new stadium is being built in DC. I won't be surprised if they do the same thing.

 

Yeah it’s modeled off SoFi and I think they are building it with soccer in mind as I think one of the things they pitched in selling was hosting women’s World Cup games.

 

I would have to agree, this article from ESPN illustrates that the value of the 1994 World Cup for the USSF intake was about 131 million in today's monies.

2026 world cup share from FIFA only brought in about 100 Million for USSF.

But FIFA's intake skyrocketed.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...grow-game-100-million-world-cup-host-windfall

 

Given the current version of Brazil being well below their historical record and this World Cup probably being the last tournament for Messi, if we’re in the Copa in two years and Pochettino is still coach what are the reasonable expectations for the team do we think?

Because it’s not that hard to get to a semifinal of a Copa and while we couldn’t be favored against every team there’s not a team in the tournament I could not see us beating.

 

Because 2026 was centralized by FIFA, that means FIFA gets more money than when the US hosted in 1994. I wonder how negotiations would go if the US were to host again in the future? Would FIFA hold the power, or would the US be able to negotiate more profits/control? After all, we’re getting to the point only a small number of countries can host if the participants remain at 48 - or even expands! But this assumes FIFA would return to a single host format post 2034. If FIFA spreads out hosting duties, presumably the profits/control will remain mostly with FIFA.

 

I think the whole Qatar thing has largely been a huge effort to make their team not suck, heading into WC '22, and to a lesser extent in general, it's almost like its some sort of luxury item that Qatar wants to show them off well and the know the team is ---, so they need to do things to help like bring them out against real comp, and there is only one Asian Cup each cycle, but there are two Gold Cups, so they can end up playing in two international competitions, heck in '19 they even played Copa America, and could have played in Copa America '21 (they were invited) but conflicts with WCQ's made it a no go.....

I also wonder if part of it is just pure sports washing, because they also basically decided to buy the U17 WC, a few years ago FIFA handed Qatar ALL the U17 WC's on the mens side from 2025-2029. I don't know why this was done, but I assume sports washing, and/or because Qatar was willing and maybe it's hard to get hosts? Not sure.

 

I would view the tournament as largely requiring a run to the semifinals to be the minimum unless we have a truly unfortunate knockout path.

Colombia is an old team, I think they've done a decent job of developing young talent, but they still are a side that basically peaked in '14-'18, and this generation '22-'26, unfortunately for them they inexplicably missed WC '22 because they tied a bazillion games (they were actually probably a top 3 side in Conmebol Qualifying, but they simply kept getting draws, and that killed them).

Brazil will be a push, I actually think they might be better as they transition to younger players.....I could be wrong though, even if they are improved, this Brazil, like the '26 Brazil, will be the worst we've ever seen.

Argentina looked like they were having some developmental issues for a bit there, but seem to be on point again.

I like to use the U20 WC to give an idea of where teams are at....in the Conmebol Youth Championships (U20)
Here's what you got with the past 3 ('19, '23 and '25), generally speaking this would mean these guys are probably 21-27 year old p[layers, the two most recent ones should be weighted more heavily since the players in '23 and '25 would be at most, 21-23 years old at this point.

South American U20 Championship:
Argentina: 2nd place in '19, 8th place in '23, and 2nd place in '25
Brazil: 5th place in '19, 1st place in '23 and 1st place in '25
Ecuador: 1st in '19, 4th in '23 and 8th place in '25
Uruguay: 3rd in '19, 2nd in '23, and 5th in '25.
Colombia: 4th in '19, 3rd in '23 and 3rd in '25
Paraguay: 8th in '19, 6th in '23, and 4th in '25

Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela haven't done squat in the tournament in years, so I'm imagining that those nations, probably, continue to stink, pending the results of their '27 regional championship.

Anyway, looking at what's going on in terms of the Copa America, the reality, at least to me, would be that most of these teams will be headed down:

Argentina: should be worse
Brazil: flat (I think getting younger & hungrier should help, but they'll also retire lots of key pieces)
Ecuador: Better, they're reasonably young, I think they'll probably be better.
Colombia: Worse
Uruguay: I can't really tell because Uruguay has done a great job at the U20 level, but most of their best players are older, not better unlike Ecuador's situation.

Is there anyone else that should really challenge us in a US based WC? I don't see why. EvenParaguay seems to have had its improvements mostly due to a coach maxing the side rather than some inherent quality. They were god awful '23 and '24, and pretty good in late '24 to '26, and then at the WC just looked like a 35th-55th caliber team in the world. Tough, defensive, effective at grinding results, but good? No. Just tough.

So yeah, Copa America '28, if we're hosting, anything other than the semifinals would be a huge disappointment because the reality is, there probably aren't any great teams in Conmebol next cycle, just effective good teams....shocking to say, but true, especially if Ecuador can't figure out how to score goals.

 

Yeah I think the thing is South America has a lot of teams who could be tough outs like Ecuador but very few who it’s not conceivable we could beat. Colombia would be a tough opponent but I do think Uruguay will be down a bit. Argentina will probably miss Messi and this version of Brazil is talented but a team we could compete with. But both Argentina and Brazil have a number of young prospects who will inevitably emerge in the next two years and change the dynamic.

If some of our young guys emerge and the core is otherwise healthy though I don’t think winning the Copa America is an inconceivable goal. Particularly if we have a coach like Pochettino.

 

If we host it would it be with 16 teams (6 from CONCACAF)?

If hosted in South America would it be 12 teams?

 

Sure. In the regular countries were the people who run things aren't also the ones with the most money.

 

and hydration breaks

 

And Pulisic calling the tournament alongside Donovan.

 

Ronaldo was never Messi’s actual rival. It was Tim Ream all along.

 

Belgium retired him.

 

US hosting the World Cup, without Canada and Mexico... but maybe with China??

🔥 LMFAO! President Trump suggests the world select AMERICA again for the World Cup — and make sure to exclude Canada and Mexico

"What we should do is you should choose the United States of America again, this time we'll leave Mexico and Canada out, but then what you do is you,… pic.twitter.com/xenLlUmoRh

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 17, 2026