Thursday, December 12, 2024
The brilliant Spain of Luis de la Fuente, current and brilliant European champion, will know this Friday its rivals in the qualifying phase for the 2026 World Cup. La Roja will start as the top seed in the Zurich draw as it is one of the eight quarterfinalists of the Nations League, a competition where they are defending their title, along with Germany, Croatia, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal as rivals. England, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria are also part of pot 1 as they are among the highest-ranked countries in the UEFA rankings and, therefore, will not meet Spain in the World Cup preliminary phase.
In this way, a different World Cup enters the scene, the first with 48 participating teams, of which 16 are European, and organized jointly in the United States, Mexico and Canada. There is more than a year and a half until that competition, but the excitement is enormous around the young but well-prepared Spanish team after its extraordinary performance in the European Championship, where it was crowned by winning all its matches, an unprecedented milestone.
As confirmed by international organizations last October, twelve teams from the Old Continent will achieve direct qualification and four will enter after a previous play-off round. The draw will leave twelve groups of four and five teams designed, which will play round-trip matches. The largest ones will open the competition in March next year and the smallest ones in September. All the leagues will end in November 2025. The champions will qualify directly and the twelve runners-up will compete in a playoff along with the four best classified teams in the Nations League who have not been first or second in the group.
These 16 teams that will participate will enter another pot to form four qualifying rounds with four teams each, which will be resolved with semi-final and final matches in the international window of March 2026. A little gibberish, but a system that should not be a hindrance to for Spain to be in that World Cup and, furthermore, with the condition of being one of the great favorites, not like the covered team that appeared in the last European Championship in Germany.
Sixteen locations
As has been known for some time, FIFA decided that the 2026 World Cup will be held from June 11 to July 19 in no less than 16 venues. Of those stadiums, eleven will be in the United States, which will have bases in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Franciso and Seattle, three in Mexico (Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey), and the Canadian ones in Toronto and Vancouver. The final will be played in New York.
Canada is making its debut, Mexico will host for the third time, after the 1970 and 1986 editions won by Pelé’s Brazil and Maradona’s Argentina, respectively, and it will be the second time that a World Cup lands on American soil. In 1994, great controversy was generated as it was a country without a football tradition, due to the greater popularity of other sports such as baseball, American football, basketball and ice hockey. Then, Brazil was proclaimed four-time champion after beating Italy in the final played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and with Romario elected best player of the tournament.
Pots of the draw for the 2026 World Cup
Pot 1: France, Spain, England, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria.
Pot 2: Ukraine, Sweden, Turkey, Wales, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Romania, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Norway.
Pot 3: Scotland, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Albania, North Macedonia, Georgia, Finland, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Israel.
Pot 4: Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Belarus, Kosovo, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Latvia and Lithuania.
Bombo 5: Moldova, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein and San Marino.