A supersized World Cup field begins to take shape in Friday’s draw

fifa More teams than ever have been invited to the World Cup with a 1% price tag for fans. The process to find out which teams will play where in the expanded field of 48 countries begins with Friday’s draw at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan will appear at football’s major event for the first time when next year’s tournament is played across 16 venues from June 11 to July 19. United States of Americamexico and Canada,

The former Arsenal manager said, “I’m quite optimistic because to qualify you have to beat other teams from your respective associations and that’s a sign of quality.” Arsene Wenger The statement was said during the red carpet rollout at the Kennedy Center on Thursday. “The teams are not there by chance.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to be accompanied by US President Donald Trump and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum. Instead of football gear, the Kennedy Center gift shop was still filled with socks from Shakespeare, Beethoven and Verdi, as well as shelves of red and white holiday nutcrackers.

All of the world’s top 11 ranked teams have qualified, with Italy ranked 12th among the 22 nations competing in a playoff for the last six spots, which will be decided on March 31.

led by captain Lionel MessiArgentina, who turned 39 during the tournament, is looking to become the first nation to win back-to-back World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Messi will look to extend his record of 26 games played and enter with 13 career goals, three fewer than Miroslav Klose’s record.

Games will be played in 11 NFL stadiums, including three in Mexico and two in Canada, where construction is underway to add 17,000 temporary seats to BMO Field, increasing capacity to approximately 45,000. Attendance would exceed the 1994 record of 3.59 million.

Alan Rothenberg, chief organizer of the 1994 World Cup in the United States, said, “We fundamentally created a new environment in terms of attendance, in terms of surrounding the tournament with a lot of entertainment and glamour.”

FIFA announced initial ticket prices of $60-$6,730, saying they would increase to $25-$475 for the 1994 tournament in the United States. It has declined to release a full list of prices, as it has done for every other World Cup since at least the 1990s. The governing body is also selling parking passes for up to $175 a match, a semi-final in Arlington, Texas.

FIFA spokesman Brian Swanson did not respond to a request from FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss ticket prices.

Sixty-four countries will participate in the draw, 30% of FIFA members, but only 42 countries are assured of playing. The playoff teams include Albania, Kosovo, New Caledonia and Suriname attempting to reach the World Cup for the first time.

With the expansion, the top two teams in each of the 12 groups advance along with the eight best third-place teams. Some countries can reach the new round of 32 with three points.

“I think we’ll be in pretty good shape,” said former U.S. midfielder Tab Ramos, who planned the permutation for advancement during his playing days. “We have a good team, so I’m not as worried about this draw as before.”

Opta Analyst’s computer estimates give the US a 0.9% chance of winning – the Americans have not reached the semi-finals since the first World Cup in 1930. Spain tops the list with 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 – would avoid each other until the semi-finals if they finished first in their first-round groups.

Specific sites for most matchups and kickoff times will not be announced until Saturday. In 1994, there were only seven night games.

Group game venues of one team will be limited to Eastern, Central and Western zones

The 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas was apolitical, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, Barry Manilow, James Brown and Vanessa Williams, as well as comedian Robin Williams, who called the draw screen “the world’s largest keno board” and shouted “Bingo!” Had shouted. When Greece was chosen.

The draw is similar to the ceremony for the 2018 tournament in Moscow, which was opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump, who has campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize, is expected to be honored with FIFA’s own peace prize, which Infantino established after traveling with Trump to several events.

But the main event is to draw balls from the bowl to form groups. Retired NFL stars Tom Brady, the NBA’s Shaquille O’Neal and the NHL’s Wayne Gretzky, as well as three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge, will officiate in a ceremony officiated by former England captain Rio Ferdinand.

“There’s a sense of anger and sheer terror and disappointment and/or joy and excitement among the coaches and the staff,” said former U.S. defender Alexi Lalas, now Fox’s chief soccer analyst. “It really becomes kind of real for people.”

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