WASHINGTON — FIFA has invited more teams than ever for a World Cup priced largely for fans in the 1%. The process of figuring out which men’s soccer teams in the expanded 48-nation field will play where begins with Friday’s draw at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan will appear in soccer’s premier event for the first time when next year’s tournament is played from June 11 to July 19 at 16 sites in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
“I’m quite optimistic, because to qualify you need to beat the other teams of your confederations, and that’s a sign of quality,” former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Thursday as red carpets were installed at the Kennedy Center. “The teams are not there by coincidence.”
Presidents Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico and Donald Trump of the U.S. are expected to attend the draw, along with Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney. Instead of soccer gear, the Kennedy Center gift shop still was filled with socks of Beethoven, Shakespeare and Verdi, along with shelves of red-and-white holiday nutcrackers.
The top 11 teams in the FIFA men’s world rankings have all qualified, with No. 12 Italy among 22 nations competing in playoffs for the final six berths to be decided March 31.
Argentina will to become the first nation to win consecutive World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Star forward and team captain Lionel Messi, who hasn’t said for sure whether he will take part, would have the chance to extend his record of 26 games played if he does. He also has 13 career goals, three shy of Miroslav Klose’s World Cup record.
“I’m going to take it one day at a time; being honest and trying to be realistic and feel good,” Messi in an interview with ESPN Argentina. “This year I felt very good.”
Games will be played at 11 NFL stadiums along with three in Mexico and two in Canada, including Toronto’s BMO Field, where construction is underway to add 17,000 temporary seats, raising capacity to around 45,000. Attendance will top the record 3.59 million from the 1994 World Cup in the U.S.
“We basically set the new tone in terms of attendance, in terms of surrounding the tournament with a lot of entertainment and glamour,” said Alan Rothenberg, head organizer of the 1994 edition of the quadrennial tournament. “We did a lot of things that kind of broke the ice with respect to how you present the tournament as something other than just a soccer tournament.”
FIFA announced initial ticket prices of $60 to $6,730, saying they would be dynamic, up from $25 to $475 for the 1994 tournament in the United States. FIFA has refused to release a complete list of prices, as it had for every other World Cup since at least 1990. The governing body also is selling parking passes for up to $175 for a single match, a semifinal at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Bryan Swanson, a spokesman for the governing body, did not respond to a request for FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss ticket prices.
The draw will feature 64 nations participating, 30% of FIFA’s members, but just 42 countries are assured of sports. Among the playoff teams, Albania, Kosovo, New Caledonia and Suriname are trying to reach the World Cup for the first time.
With the expansion, the top two teams in each of 12 groups advance, along with the eight best third-place teams. Some nations could reach the new round of 32 with three points.
“I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape,” said former U.S. midfielder Tab Ramos, who during his playing days mapped out permutations for advancement. “We have a good team, so I’m not worried as much as I’ve been in the past about about this draw.”
Opta Analyst’s computer projects the U.S. has a 0.9% chance of winning; the Americans haven’t reached the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930. Spain tops the forecast at 17%, followed by France (14.1%), England (11.8%), Argentina (8.7%), Germany (7.1.%), Portugal (6.6%), Brazil (5.6%) and the Netherlands (5.2%).
In a new twist, FIFA said the top four teams in the rankings — Spain, Argentina, France and England — will avoid each other until the semifinals if they finish first in their first-round groups.
Specific sites for most matchups and kickoff times won’t be announced until Saturday. In 1994, there were just seven night games.
A team’s group play sites will be restricted to an Eastern, Central and Western regional
The 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas was apolitical, featuring performances by musicians James Brown, Barry Manilow, Vanessa Williams and Stevie Wonder, plus Robin Williams. The American comedian called the draw screen “the world’s largest Keno board,” then yelled “Bingo!” when Greece was selected.
This draw figures to be more akin to the ceremony for the 2018 tournament in Moscow, opened by Russia President Vladimir Putin. Trump, who has campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize, is expected to be awarded FIFA’s own peace prize that Infantino established after traveling to several events with the American president.
But the main event is the pulling of balls from bowls to create groups. Retired star athletes Tom Brady of the NFL, Wayne Gretzky of the NHL and Shaquille O’Neal of the NBA, along with three-time American League MVP Aaron Judge of Major League Baseball — he’s still playing for the New York Yankees — will assist in a ceremony to be run by former England men’s soccer team captain Rio Ferdinand.
“There is the angst and the looks of sheer terror and disappointment and/or joy and elation from the coaches and from the staffs,” said former U.S. defender Alexi Lalas, now the lead soccer analyst for Fox telecasts. “It really gets kind of real for people.”