The biggest battle in the soccer world this summer — at least from a U.S. perspective — will take place before a ball is kicked at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Prior to the start of the world’s greatest tournament, FIFA will determine the host of the 2026 edition. And the only thing standing in the way of the U.S. (along with Mexico and Canada) winning the vote is the Morocco World Cup bid.
If you’re looking for the 2018 Mexico World Cup schedule, you’ve come to the right place. Mexico is guaranteed three games at the event, playing Group F matches against Germany (June 17), South Korea (June 23) and Sweden (June 27).
The 21st edition of the World Cup kicks off in Moscow on June 14. It’s the most popular tournament for the world’s most popular game. But do you actually know how the World Cup works?
The World Cup has had dozens of different formats since its inception in 1930. Since the World Cup expanded from 24 to 32 teams ahead of the 1998 edition, the tournament has finally found a system it likes. FIFA has stuck with the same format of eight groups of four turning into a 16-team knockout playoff for six tournaments now, including Russia 2018.
Four years is a good amount of time for a person to change.
So I decided to take a look at players who have played in a lot of World Cups and see their evolution every time they played in the world’s greatest competition. I picked welll known players in football (and DaMarcus Beasley for the USMNT fans) and what I learned was this:
In one of the biggest controversies in U.S. soccer history, Jurgen Klinsmann infamously left out USMNT stalwart Landon Donovan from his 23-man squad for the 2014 World Cup. Donovan, who was 32 years old at the time, would have been looking at participating in his fourth World Cup, but sadly it was not to be.
With very few exceptions throughout the history of the FIFA World Cup, the vaunted group of death stigma has largely followed a self-same pattern: two extremely strong European nations and two heavy hitters from other confederations.
In 2014, we had two candidates for the group of death, both exhibiting the aforementioned makeup.
In Group B, Spain, the Netherlands, Chile and Australia just battered each other, kicking la Furia Roja to the curb despite their status as the defending world champions.
Starting on May 29 (16 days before the World Cup officially kicks off), you’ll be able to download a free update to FIFA 18 that focuses solely on bringing the 2018 FIFA World Cup to life. EA SPORTS just announced the content, which features a “2018 FIFA World Cup Russia” mode, a “Custom Tournament” option (let’s go, USMNT!) and “FIFA World Cup Ultimate Team.”
The U.S. is not going to the World Cup and that is very sad and not at all cool. That said, one must still watch the World Cup. It's the dang World Cup, after all. But what team should one root for while watching the World Cup? One must have a rooting interest in order to properly enjoy the tournament. Objectivity is not only boring as hell but also impossible, many journalism professors would tell you.