2026 WC Bid?

[MrSabiondo]

On 3/26/2018 at 8:09 PM, red card said:

A person at work mentioned he was watching his young kids play soccer over the weekend in Brampton. His takeaway was that all the kids just chase after the ball. 

I asked if the coach had some qualifications. No, he was a volunteer parent. Does the club have some program to get him some basic courses or a technical director. Nope. Isn't he mad he's not getting value for his money. Not really, it's $200/kid and he just wants them to be active. They don't need upscale or elite training.

So good that parents are more aware kids need to be active. But 2 generations ago, kids were active on their own. Now, it is all organized play or cheap babysitting.

The funny thing is that many of those so called qualified coaches with the basic courses and technical directors are just as useless as the volunteer parent.  Hey at least the parent volunteering is having a blast and it only cause the fee for his kid to coach the team.

I say this is  because being from a South American country I saw lots of of volunteers for the local clubs coaching youth squads and though they don't get scammed do to these weekend courses they had a much richer knowledge on how to get kids playing as a team. 

The difference of course is culture where more than half the population feels qualified to coach the National team.  The other thing of course is most of the kids playing at the club level in football developed nations actually want to play and it's not at the parents insistence to become the next Messi or just to get him to blow off some steam.

I coached my kids house league team here for 1 season and I kept it pretty simple for the hour of training I managed to schedule.  I just had them scrimmage more than half of the time.  I let them set their own rules and tried not to interfere at all during their time of play.  Guess what it worked.  It developed some team play and pecking order within their little group.

Back home I used to play on an field, street, plaza whatever with friends of all size and ages.  You learn quickly how to beat an older kid one-on-one and sometimes you never do, but you keep trying, but then when somebody invites you to play for their club the coaches only job is to have you play as a team and not teach you how to pass or kick the ball.

 

[Jith12]

Interesting report coming out of Morocco that states FIFA will reject the Moroccan bid before the final vote on June 13. Apparently FIFA is not willing to risk "losing the Americans" and that "the US will do all it can to avoid reaching the voting phase". 

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/243481/morocco-will-lose-2026-world-cup-battle-algerian-commentator/

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

Just now, Jith12 said:

Interesting report coming out of Morocco that states FIFA will reject the Moroccan bid before the final vote on June 13. Apparently FIFA is not willing to risk "losing the Americans" and that "the US will do all it can to avoid reaching the voting phase". 

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/243481/morocco-will-lose-2026-world-cup-battle-algerian-commentator/

You are taking the views of one Algerian guy too seriously:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algeria–Morocco_relations

 

[Watchmen]

12 hours ago, Jith12 said:

Interesting report coming out of Morocco that states FIFA will reject the Moroccan bid before the final vote on June 13. Apparently FIFA is not willing to risk "losing the Americans" and that "the US will do all it can to avoid reaching the voting phase". 

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/243481/morocco-will-lose-2026-world-cup-battle-algerian-commentator/

Thing is, there is an "Option C" - reopening to the bidding to all continents.  I'm partially convinced this is the way it might actually go.

[Jith12]

12 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Thing is, there is an "Option C" - reopening to the bidding to all continents.  I'm partially convinced this is the way it might actually go.

That is certainly an option, but it is a last resort in case none of the bids are deemed suitable to host. The original reason that "we were losing" was not because we weren't ready but because of political reasons. At the moment, it looks like we are prepared enough to host in 2026, whereas Morocco is questionable. I don't really see why FIFA would deem us "unprepared" and go to option C.

[mpg_29]

6 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Thing is, there is an "Option C" - reopening to the bidding to all continents.  I'm partially convinced this is the way it might actually go.

The North American bid is ultimately too safe and lucrative to completely pass on imo. The only real negative is the travel but even then with a 48 team tournament you could cluster groups into regions (ie. east/west north/south) to minimize travel.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

It would be politically risky for Infantino to let his evaluation committee exclude Morocco.  He's got a re-election campaign coming up and I'm sure he cares more about staying in power than anything else.  Every Morocco backer would see their exclusion as undemocratic favouritism.   It will be much easier to let Morocco's shortcomings slide and have the voters decide

[Watchmen]

39 minutes ago, Jith12 said:

That is certainly an option, but it is a last resort in case none of the bids are deemed suitable to host. The original reason that "we were losing" was not because we weren't ready but because of political reasons. At the moment, it looks like we are prepared enough to host in 2026, whereas Morocco is questionable. I don't really see why FIFA would deem us "unprepared" and go to option C.

Sure, I'm by no means saying it will happen.  But I always remember one of the initial rumours I heard: a future joint bid between Morocco, Spain, and Portugal.  And I just keep wondering if voters will go "Option C", reopen the bid, and then we get a revised bid from Morocco involving those two countries.  Would allow FIFA to promote going back to Africa but would alleviate some of the concerns with the Morocco bid.

[gator]

How about a revised solo bid from Canada where the US and their unpopular politics don't take us down? I realize there would be infrastructure challenges in the expanded format, I would think we could overcome any of these, Vancouver and other cities may be more apt to get involved in a solo bid, just a thought!

[Watchmen]

5 minutes ago, gator said:

How about a revised solo bid from Canada where the US and their unpopular politics don't take us down? I realize there would be infrastructure challenges in the expanded format, I would think we could overcome any of these, Vancouver and other cities may be more apt to get involved in a solo bid, just a thought!

Zero chance of that.  The BC and Alberta provincial governments have already said they don't like the costs.  Now imagine the costs increasing considerably.

[gator]

6 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Zero chance of that.  The BC and Alberta provincial governments have already said they don't like the costs.  Now imagine the costs increasing considerably.

I wonder if the CSA had an idea of this and that's why we agreed to host a measly 10 games?

[Guest]

6 hours ago, gator said:

I wonder if the CSA had an idea of this and that's why we agreed to host a measly 10 games?

I'm going to stick with my theory of US bullying on that one! Particularly since we get no knockout matches. In fact, the 10 matches would be a lot more palatable if one of them were a semi, or even a quarter. But zero knockout matches? Give me a FB.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

This twitter thread created by Duane Rollins is interesting:

 

[jpg75]

2 hours ago, dsqpr said:

I'm going to stick with my theory of US bullying on that one! Particularly since we get no knockout matches. In fact, the 10 matches would be a lot more palatable if one of them were a semi, or even a quarter. But zero knockout matches? Give me a FB.

Your post is too confusing for some apparently.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

Your post is too confusing for some apparently.

It is my poor English that does it.

[Kent]

4 hours ago, dsqpr said:

I'm going to stick with my theory of US bullying on that one! Particularly since we get no knockout matches. In fact, the 10 matches would be a lot more palatable if one of them were a semi, or even a quarter. But zero knockout matches? Give me a FB.

Have things changed since the original announcement? The way I remember it was that USA gets everything from quarters on. Round of 32 and round of 16 (both knockout rounds in the 48 team format) could be hosted by Canada.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

Have things changed since the original announcement? The way I remember it was that USA gets everything from quarters on. Round of 32 and round of 16 (both knockout rounds in the 48 team format) could be hosted by Canada.

Looks as though your memory is better than mine!

Still bad that we don't even get a QF though.

[matty]

12 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

This twitter thread created by Duane Rollins is interesting:

 

lol Morocco's going to win

[BuzzAndSting]

WTF St Lucia?! Is this because of Elva?

[gator]

Somewhat related to this thread, did anyone know Victor made $2M last year?

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/sports/soccer/concacaf-montagliani-salary.html

[CanadianSoccerFan]

1 hour ago, gator said:

Somewhat related to this thread, did anyone know Victor made $2M last year?

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/sports/soccer/concacaf-montagliani-salary.html

Making more than Ceferin and Infantino does make for bad optics.  

[Kent]

11 hours ago, dsqpr said:

Still bad that we don't even get a QF though.

Agreed!

[Obinna]

If Morocco wins is there any chance of having a 32 team tournament? 48 teams is so stupid.

Acutally, it's 3-team groups I have a problem with.

It means a 2 game world cup for 66% of the teams involved. All the blood, sweat and tears of qualifying for 2 games? That's just dumb, I am sorry.

[Kent]

15 minutes ago, Obinna said:

If Morocco wins is there any chance of having a 32 team tournament? 48 teams is so stupid.

Acutally, it's 3-team groups I have a problem with.

It means a 2 game world cup for 66% of the teams involved. All the blood, sweat and tears of qualifying for 2 games? That's just dumb, I am sorry.

I agree, but it's actually a 2 game World Cup for only 33% of the teams involved, because it gets shrunk from 48 to 32 after the group stage.

I can just imagine, let's say Morocco gets the World Cup, but we somehow manage to qualify on merit. We get drawn in a group with, say, Spain and one other team. Our first game against Spain we lose and get shut out (as you would expect) now all of a sudden we only have one more game to not go home without a point or without a goal. I think a lot of teams will go home completely empty handed and for many of them it will seem like a somewhat hollow experience.

I'm probably being over dramatic, and just qualifying for the World Cup would make me very proud, but less opportunities for that magic moment within the tournament itself could put a damper on things.

[Ansem]

2 hours ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Making more than Ceferin and Infantino does make for bad optics.  

But his accomplishments 

Under Montagliani, Concacaf has retained key sponsors, signed new broadcast agreements, revamped some of its competitions and created a new national team league. The organization also is in talks with South America’s confederation, Conmebol, which may cooperate to create a regular tournament for the Americas.

Concacaf renewed its principal partner Scotia Bank on better terms, and signed richer contracts with Fox Sports in the United States and Latin America. A recent deal with Verizon, Moggio said, was a sign of increased confidence in the organization’s new corporate governance structures. He said the operating income target for 2017 was double the projected amount.