Melvin Durai
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is finally here, kicking off with a preliminary match on 11 June in Mexico City, and finishing with the final on 19 July. For more than five weeks, people around the world will be glued to TVs, computer screens and phones, even while sitting in their offices or working remotely, cheering for goals while their companies fall short of theirs. In some football-crazy countries, productivity is so low during the World Cup that GDP dips every four years. To get you prepared for the World Cup, I’ve decided to answer some important questions you might have. QUESTION: Can you name the teams that are participating in this year’s World Cup? ANSWER: It would be easier to name the teams that are NOT participating in this year’s World Cup. FIFA expanded the field from 32 teams to 48. That’s more than twice the number of teams in the Premier League. If you are a European or South American country and did not qualify for the World Cup, you prob ably have a new head coach, and your old coach has been reassigned to a high school checkers team. Q: Did FIFA expand the field in order to make more money? A: No, they did it to allow Uzbekistan to finally qualify. Viewers around the world had been clamouring to watch more Uzbekistan football.
Actually, FIFA’s motive in expanding the field was threefold: (1) bring in more cash; (2) make more dough; and (3) end up with more moolah. Q: Can I afford to go to a match? A: Did you buy stock in Nvidia? If so, just sell 20 units, and you’ll be able to tell all your friends that you witnessed DR Congo beating Uzbekistan. Q: What is the best aspect of the World Cup? A: It’s watching the world’s best players show how skilful they are at falling down in the penalty box. No, it’s actually watching them make amazing shots, not just with their feet but also their heads. Q: What is the worst aspect of the World Cup? A: My least favourite part is seeing matches in the knockout stage being decided by penalty shootouts. Surely there are more reasonable options for deciding a match that ends in a draw, such as allowing the country with the longest name to advance. That would be great for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Q: Does the United States team have a chance to win the World Cup? A: Yes, the US has a chance, just about the same chance as I do of being selected for the Olympic gymnastics team. Truthfully, it will be a victory for the US if it gets to the round of 16 or even the quarterfinals. Finishing among the top 8 teams in the world would be quite a feat, worthy of an invitation to the White House for a McDonald’s feast. Q: Will India ever qualify for the FIFA World Cup? A: When asking this question, you need to add the word “again.” India qualified for the 1950 World Cup after the other three teams in India’s qualifying group, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines, withdrew from the competition, evidently afraid to be trounced by India. Unfortunately, after qualifying for the World Cup in Brazil, India also withdrew, which cleared the path for Uruguay to win its second World Cup title. There’s a belief that India withdrew from the World Cup because FIFA insisted that the players could not compete barefooted, and the All India Football Federation, in the pre-Internet days, was unable to start a GoFundMe campaign for shoes. To answer your question, I believe India will qualify for the Olympics in 2040, as soon as FIFA expands the field to 128 teams. Until then, we’ll just have to be happy about winning the cricket World Cup.
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