A month and a half World Cup

2023-10-07 02:12:37

A month and a half World Cup with the latest final in its history. Late on Friday, FIFA offered some details about the 2030 soccer team championship that Spain, Portugal and Morocco will jointly organize. However, as already announced this week, the first three will be played in South America, with Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina being the chosen countries as they coincide with the centenary of the first World Cups, held precisely there.

These three matches, which will feature the national teams of said countries, would be played on June 8 or 9 of that year, while the other two matches in those groups would be played on June 15-16 and, finally, the 21-22 of the same month. And although it is foreseeable that each federation will want to do some symbolic act in the stadium to mark this, the opening ceremony itself would take a week to wait and would take place on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, presumably in Spain, although this is not yet clear. . It would be June 13 or 14 with the first match already on the lands of the purely host countries of the tournament.

What is also not yet resolved is the place where the matches will be played, because although several lists of possible stadiums have already been crossed, they are not yet official. It will be the FIFA Congress itself that will make that decision in the fourth quarter of next year, although it seems highly probable that Madrid will host the final of that World Cup and the Santiago Bernabéu stadium will be the chosen venue. The chosen date is July 21, which in addition to being the latest final in memory of a summer World Cup, is practically 45 days difference from its start.

Regarding the calendar, FIFA specifies that about 11 or 12 days will be provided so that the six teams that play in South America can travel and rest before their second match. For their part, the rest of the teams will have about 5 or 6 days to travel and rest, according to Relevo.

Likewise, the championship will be played within a radius of action of three neighboring countries (Spain, Portugal and Morocco) “very close geographically” and equipped with “extensive and well-developed infrastructure and transport networks.” The same would happen in South America, with three ‘headquarters’ in three nearby countries.

Historical commemoration

As for the matches in South America, the centenary commemoration match will be played in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, and the ceremony to celebrate said anniversary will also take place there, in recognition of Uruguay’s role as host and champion of the edition of 1930. In the case of Argentina, the Albiceleste was finalist and runner-up in that World Cup. And Paraguay was the headquarters of CONMEBOL, the first and only confederation that existed at that time.

Although FIFA has shed some light on some of the big doubts about the 2030 World Cup, the truth is that there are still several issues to be resolved on the table. From how many venues there will be, with Spain as the main country and, therefore, the one that will have the most official enclaves, to what the stadiums will be, the match schedules, the logistics or the conditions of the group stage draw. All of this remains up in the air and who knows if there will still be any surprises.