May 23, 2026
4 min read
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We are weeks away from the biggest soccer tournament on the planet landing on North American soil for the first time since 1994. Sixty-four matches. Forty-eight teams. Sixteen host cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. And yet — for a lot of fans — it doesn't feel like a World Cup year.
Maybe it's the grind of daily life getting in the way. Maybe it's the fact that for many of us, actually going was never a realistic option — ticket prices, travel, and accommodation in American cities made attending feel like a fantasy reserved for the privileged few. Or maybe something more fundamental has shifted in how this tournament is being packaged and sold to us.
I think it's all three. But I also think FIFA deserves some of the blame.
The decision to expand the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams was, in my opinion, a mistake. I understand the commercial logic — more nations participating means more markets, more broadcast deals, more sponsorship dollars. Gianni Infantino and FIFA's finance department are thrilled. But as a fan? It waters down the product.
The World Cup's drama has always lived in scarcity. Every spot in the group stage felt earned. Every nation that showed up had a legitimate claim to be there. Now we've added 16 more teams, and while the expanded field will inevitably produce a feel-good Cinderella story or two, it comes at a cost: the group stage means less.
Nothing in soccer carries the same electricity as a Group of Death — that brutal pool where three or four elite nations fight over two knockout spots, where giants get eliminated before anyone's even broken a sweat in the round of 16. It's appointment television. It's the kind of football that converts casual observers into obsessives.
The 2026 format — 12 groups of four teams — dilutes that. And the rule that the eight best third-place finishers advance to the round of 32? That's the part that stings most. Teams that used to get sent home in the group stage now get a second chance. The consequence: there's less pressure in the groups. The knife-edge tension that made every final group game feel like life or death is partially defused.
The "group of death" concept doesn't disappear entirely — you can still construct a brutal pool on paper — but the stakes aren't quite the same when a third-place finish might still be enough to survive. That's a real loss.
Part of what makes every World Cup special is the sense of collective anticipation — the way the tournament builds for months until it's inescapable. Flags on cars, office sweepstakes, bars packed at 7am for a group stage match nobody expected to care about.
That energy feels quieter this cycle, at least in my corner of the world. Hosting the tournament in the United States — a country where soccer remains culturally secondary to football, basketball, and baseball — hasn't helped. The infrastructure is world-class and the stadiums are enormous, but the organic street-level buzz that you'd feel in Brazil, Germany, or even South Africa is harder to manufacture in a country where the tournament is more a spectacle to be hosted than a celebration to be lived.
I do think the excitement is coming. It always does. Once the group draws are set in stone, once the first whistle blows and the first upset happens, the tournament takes over in that way only the World Cup can. The best version of this competition — the one that stops everything else and turns the entire planet into a single audience — will show up when the games actually start.
But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going into this one with slightly lower expectations. The expanded format is here to stay. The third-place advancement rule isn't going anywhere. And for a generation of fans who grew up with 32 teams and the unforgiving drama that came with it, the 2026 World Cup might always feel like it's playing a slightly different game.
It's still the World Cup. It's still the best thing in sports. I just hope the football itself makes me forget all of this by the time the knockout rounds arrive.
What's your take — does the 48-team format excite you or does it feel like a step too far?