🤞 'This is our chance' & more: Five things to watch as the second round of World Cup qualification begins
The pressure may not be on, but for every team in the region outside North America, these games matter
Do you know how long some people have been waiting for this?
After a four-team preliminary round, World Cup qualification in the region begins in earnest Wednesday with the majority of Concacaf teams playing two matches over the next six days that will go a long way toward determining if they’re able to achieve their dreams and qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
While these games have flown under the radar in North America, where all three nations are automatically qualified as the hosts of the 2026 tournament, they are games that long have been circled on the calendar in a number of countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Look at these fans in Guatemala City serenading their team ahead of tonight’s opener against Dominica.
Gone are the days of a country being eliminated from a World Cup and not thinking about it for another four years. As soon as many teams were knocked out of contention for the 2022 World Cup, they turned to planning for 2026.
Why shouldn’t they have? This World Cup is unlike any before for so many teams in the region.
This is our chance: Hope springs eternal with North Americans qualified
While there are three automatic places up for grabs just like there were in previous cycles (and two playoff places), none of those spots will be occupied by perennial powers Mexico and the U.S. or by the 2022 table-topper Canada.
That means the World Cup suddenly feels like a realistic goal for nations that couldn’t dream of leapfrogging those power countries in the past.
“There are 36 teams, Concacaf has six and a half places. We all know the U.S., Mexico and Canada are qualified, so there are really 3 (plus the playoffs), but with the work we’ve been doing we have a 33.3 percent chance to do it - that’s what I feel today. That’s where we’re at,” Dominican Republic manager Marcelo Neveleff told me last week - two years after Guatemala manager Luis Fernando Tena of Guatemala told me, “The project, as everyone knows and we don’t lose sight of it, is to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.”
I’ve heard the same from managers and officials in places like Curacao, Jamaica, Panama and countries who face even longer odds.
As qualification starts, everyone feels like this could be the opportunity. There are no big teams in the way. Get the right results against teams who, like you, have weaknesses to exploit and you could go down in your nation’s history.