Copa America 2024 was supposed to point out the soccer world that the US can efficiently host main tournaments. The competitors, which is often held in South America, was performed all through the States in June and July. Many basically noticed Copa America as mainly a dry run for the 2026 World Cup.
Whereas there have been lofty expectations, this summer season’s event was a borderline catastrophe. Excessive ticket costs compelled a number of group-stage matches to occur in entrance of half-empty stadiums. Issues with pitches in a number of arenas prompted backlash from a plethora of gamers and coaches. Maybe most significantly, safety points marred the latter phases of the competitors.
Regardless of all of those issues, there can be some notable modifications forward of the 2026 World Cup. Whereas Copa America 2024 was in the US, CONMEBOL took cost of the competitors’s group. The South American soccer federation was in command of the occasion, together with safety and crowd management procedures. FIFA, nonetheless, will take cost of the World Cup in two years.
FIFA will get a head begin on potential pitch issues
The world’s governing physique of the game will virtually actually take extra of an initiative to make the World Cup run easily. South American soccer knowledgeable, Tim Vickery, claimed that modifications will occur forward of the event.
“You possibly can assure with FIFA coming to city for the World Cup that the extent of group can be higher than [Copa America],” Vickery talkSPORT. “I believe a couple of classes can be realized too, however pondering forward to the World Cup in two years’ time, the group management and occasion group is just not the one doable drawback that we’re going to have. There are two different issues.”
“The pitches which have been a catastrophe [at Copa America 2024] in two senses. Firstly, most of those stadiums are American soccer stadiums, so what they did was put grass on high of synthetic turf. They laid this grass two or three days earlier than. There have been panels.”
“These American soccer pitches are too small. They’re 5 meters shorter and 4 meters narrower than what you usually get. This clearly has an impact on the standard of the spectacle.”
Whereas these factors are actually true, FIFA can be taking up the World Cup host stadiums a month earlier than the competitors begins. This can give organizers extra time to make crucial alterations to the fields. Not solely is the governing physique laying down pure turf nicely forward of time, however they’re additionally eradicating stadium seats to make the pitches match to FIFA requirements.
Extreme warmth may result in issues on the 2026 World Cup
However, one explicit drawback that FIFA or anybody else can actually management is the climate. A big portion of the US is experiencing a warmth wave and it actually affected Copa America 2024.
“One other [issue] is the warmth,” Vickery continued. “And it’s an enormous drawback. We had it in one of many Copa America video games earlier than halftime, a linesman from Guatemala collapsed due to the warmth. And the video games for the World Cup can be sooner than those we noticed for Copa America to succeed in the TV viewers in Europe. A few of the stadiums are air-conditioned. Others aren’t. Even when the stadiums are air-conditioned, the coaching grounds aren’t.”
10 of the 16 host North American cities for the 2026 World Cup are additional south than Kansas Metropolis. Excessive temperatures within the Missouri metropolis considerably recurrently exceed 90 levels at instances through the peak summer season months. Different areas resembling Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, and Houston can even doubtless be even hotter as nicely.
Predicting the climate, particularly two years out, is unimaginable. FIFA, nonetheless, can be hoping that the area doesn’t expertise an identical warmth wave in 2026. If that’s the case, organizers should discover methods to assist preserve gamers, coaches, and followers cool through the competitors.
PHOTOS: IMAGO
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