Why a Tri-Bid?

The United States, Mexico and Canada formally announced their tri-bid for the 2026 World Cup today.  This was not a surprise to anyone.  It's been expected for quite some time.  It's also the odds-on favorite to host the first expanded 48-team World Cup.

Here's my question, though--Why is it a tri-bid?  Especially since 75 percent of the tournament is going to be in the United States.  The expanded field and additional games do limit the number of countries that will be able to host moving forward, so joint bids and co-hosts will likely become the norm.  But the United States is not a country that needs to co-host.  In fact, it's one of the few that can handle the larger tournament pretty easily.

I can somewhat understand wanting to include Mexico and being able to use Azteca for some of the games, but where else in Mexico would you play?  And where in Canada?  They drew a ton of criticism for using turf during the 2015 Women's World Cup, and they'd almost certainly have to use natural grass in the men's World Cup.  There's also the question of where in Canada you'd play.  The Blue Jays will have installed grass in SkyDome by then, but will they make the stadium available for the World Cup?  And will they let the soccer players tear up their grass?  The Canadian National Team plays most of its home games at BMO Field in Toronto, but is that big enough?

We're also talking about a huge area.  The United States itself is big enough.  Now you're adding Canada and Mexico to the equation.  The organizers of the bid have acknowledged this little problem and suggested that they'd have to break the games up regionally, which makes complete sense.  In fact, assuming there are 12 stadiums in the U.S. and two each in Canada and Mexico, they could have each of the 16 groups play all of the group games in the same stadium, with travel only coming into play once the knockout round begins.

If there are 16 stadiums in use, each would host five games--three in group play, one in the round of 32, and another knockout round game.  They'd have to figure out the groups so that each of the hosts can play all of their games in their own country, but I'd break it down like this: Canada-Toronto, Montreal; Mexico-Mexico City, Guadalajara; United States-Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington.

Since this will be the first World Cup with 48 teams, it will also be the first with the new qualifying format.  More on that in a second, but one of the more significant parts of the new qualifying system is that the host country's automatic bid will come out of their federation's allotment.  All three hosts understandably want an automatic bid, which creates a little bit of a problem in that it essentially takes away all three of the additional spots that CONCACAF was just given (although the chances that the U.S. and Mexico would qualify anyway, especially with six teams coming out of the region now, you'd figure are pretty high).

CONCACAF going from three bids to six seemed likely all along.  That's the number that makes the most sense.  Of course, that would mean the end of the Hex, although, if the three North American teams do co-host, we might see the Hex get one last hurrah in 2024-25.  Moving forward, though, it doesn't make sense to have a final qualifying round of six when you've got six teams advancing.  What seems the most logical to me is a 10-team final round split into two groups of five, with the top three in each qualifying.

Nothing is going to change in South American qualifying.  They only have 10 teams, so they weren't going to get many more berths than their current 4.5.  With the number of South American qualifiers now at six, a full 60 percent of the membership will play in the World Cup.  Africa will have nine, so I'd figure they'll have nine qualifying groups with the winners advancing.  Asia's bids have been increased to eight.  They already have their qualifiers coming out of two final groups, so I can see those final groups simply becoming bigger.  And Oceania (meaning New Zealand) is finally going to get an automatic bid, which is long overdue.

Europe is where things get interesting.  UEFA's bids only increased from 13 to 16.  The rationale for that makes total sense, though.  For the UEFA President, it was more important to keep the European teams separated than to have more in the tournament.  Since there will be 16 groups, 16 European teams made perfect sense.  One in each group, guaranteeing none can play each other prior to the knockout round.  And it actually makes European qualifying pretty easy, too.  Eight groups, with the top two advancing.

My favorite feature of the new World Cup qualifying system, though, is the playoff tournament.  This replaces those inter-confederation playoffs at the end of the qualifying window.  Six teams, one from each region except Europe, plus an extra one from the host confederation (which loses one of its bids to the host country).  Two get seeded based on world rankings and play the winners of games between the four unseeded teams.  The winners of those two games qualify.  I love it.

Who would qualify for that playoff tournament is still a little foggy, though.  FIFA said it's based on world ranking, but I think it should be based on how they fared in their confederation's qualifying.  Meaning I want to see the seventh-place team from CONMEBOL and the second-place team from Oceania.  They deserve the second chance more than the team that struggled in qualifying, but has a higher ranking.

Regardless of how it's set up, the playoff tournament is going to add a whole new layer of intrigue to the 2026 World Cup, which will almost certainly be tri-hosted by the three North American countries.  It's really the only logical choice to host the first 48-team tournament.