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Vancouver is hosting seven World Cup matches at BC Place.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
On Tuesday, sports reporters Cathal Kelly, Paul Attfield and Neil Davidson answered reader questions on all aspects of the FIFA World Cup.
Readers asked about Canada’s chances of making the knockout stage, the changes made to the tournament’s format and why Canadians are paying millions to host the event. Here are some highlights from the Q&A.
Team Canada
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Canada forward Jonathan David (10) celebrates with Tani Oluwaseyi after scoring against Guatemala at the 2025 Gold Cup.Matt Krohn/Reuters
What’s with all the injuries on Canada’s roster? Are our chances of winning a game gone?
Neil Davidson: I think all teams are experiencing injury woes, likely because with club, cup and international competitions, players don’t really get a break. You could argue the Canadian team is hurting more than most, but most are back training and well on the road to recovery.
The Canadian cause won’t obviously be helped if it loses the services of captain Alphonso Davies or centre back Moise Bombito for a period of time. Canada wants to win its group, which would mean a round of 32 game in Vancouver.
I’m confident you will see a Canada win. But keep your fingers crossed on the health front.
Canada has had a tough time scoring lately. Why do you think that is and which player do you think will get things going for us at the World Cup?
Paul Attfield: While I agree that Canada has had a tough time scoring goals of late, it’s worth remembering that scoring goals is arguably the hardest thing to do in soccer, which is why top-notch goal scorers regularly move clubs for nine-figure sums.
In Canada’s case, the team doesn’t have a whole lot going for it up top. Jonathan David is clearly Canada’s best offensive talent, as evidenced by his record 39 goals for the program. However, in the absence of a clear-cut No. 10, he is currently being asked to both load the gun and pull the trigger for the team’s offensive arsenal, which means his ability in both those facets is lesser as a result. He is not in the top tier of players in that mould, such as England captain Harry Kane, and the other players that Canada is relying on for goals – Promise David, Cyle Larin, Tani Oluwaseyi – lack the consistent finishes of some of the planet’s more prolific goal scorers.
At the World Cup, while David is crucial to the team’s hopes – given his responsibilities, he’s arguably Canada’s most important player – I think Canada will need to spread the scoring around, and players like Tajon Buchanan, Liam Millar and Ismael Kone might need to step up.
The expansion
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The World Cup match schedule is revealed in Washington on Dec. 6, 2025.Chris Carlson/The Associated Press
Was it a good idea to expand the group stage from 32 to 48 teams? Doesn’t that water down the competition?
Cathal Kelly: It was a good idea to expand the number of teams if FIFA pays your salary or if you work in Coca-Cola’s marketing department. If you don’t do either of those things, then it wasn’t.
The upshot is that the tournament will still present the same sort of high-end competition we sued to get. It’s just going to take a while – until the round of 32 – to get there.
The group stage now functions as a sort of pre-season, where the likes of Spain can catch their groove by laying beatings on the likes of Cape Verde.
If there are 48 teams in the tournament, how have teams ranked lower than that qualified? Shouldn’t the qualified teams be ranked 1 to 48?
Davidson: The FIFA rankings, while compiled using a complicated mathematical formula, don’t tell the whole story. Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, is currently ranked 64th, but managed to knock off No. 12 Italy and No. 37 Wales in the European playoffs.
The qualifying process also adds drama. Sometimes painfully so.
Attfield: If FIFA went strictly on its rankings – which are somewhat flawed and based on what kind of opposition a team can line up in arranging friendlies, etc. – then sure, the top 48 teams could advance straight into the World Cup.
But where’s the fun in that? More pertinently for all of the regional soccer organizations like UEFA, and the national soccer federations around the world, where’s the cash? By dragging out the qualifying tournament over a couple of years, those federations all get to make a boatload more money from ticket sales and broadcasting rights, plus you get the possibility of some Cinderella teams – like Curaçao or Cape Verde – making the tournament.
The rules
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Argentina celebrates its victory in a penalty shootout as despondent France players look on at the end of the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
Why does a match go to penalty kicks to decide even the biggest games if tied? It’s not as though they need to clear out the stadium for the next game.
Kelly: Because at a certain point, each team has used up all its substitutes and there’s only so much sprinting even the fittest humans can do. Nobody wants a scene where half of the players on the pitch are rolling around crippled with leg cramps.
Plus, let’s face it – shootouts are fun. Especially soccer shootouts. You ever turned a soccer game – any soccer game – off? Now, you ever turned a shootout off? I rest my case.
Have the rules governing VAR (Video Assistant Referee) reviews changed since the last World Cup? Who picks the reviewers?
Davidson: There have been a couple of changes. They include allowing the video assistant referee to step in in cases of the wrong player getting a second yellow that leads to a red card. Also if a corner is wrongly awarded.
Another interesting change is to allow the VAR to step in and alert the referee if an attacking player fouls a defender before a corner is taken to gain an advantage. Previously the VAR wasn’t allowed to intervene in cases when the ball was not in play. But the idea is to prevent a foul that helps allow a goal.
But remember, the on-field referee always has the last say. The video assistant referees, by the way, are based in Dallas at the main broadcast centre.
The beautiful game
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England forward Harry Kane scans the field during a June 6 friendly against New Zealand.Chris O’Meara/The Associated Press
How will the heat, increased travel for teams and changes in climate impact the competition? Does it work to any team’s advantage?
Kelly: I trust that every team will be fine flying back and forth, since they will have at least a couple of days to acclimatize to time zone changes. Plus, it’s not like we’re talking overseas travel.
As you suggest, I think temperature is the biggest extraneous factor. In Qatar, they moved logistical mountains so that games would not be played at the hottest time of the day. No such moves here, with plenty of noon and 3 p.m. starts. I think you’re going to be hearing a lot about this going forward.
I’m not sure it confers an advantage on anyone. Just because you’re from a hot climate, that doesn’t mean you appreciate going full out for two hours on a day when it’s muggy and 30 C. Generally speaking, top pros may practice in these conditions, but they rarely play in them.
What style of play is in vogue right now in international competitions?
Attfield: The calibre of coaches in this tournament is arguably the greatest in the 96-year history of the World Cup, with the likes of Carlo Ancelotti (Brazil), Thomas Tuchel (England), Julian Nagelsmann (Germany), Didier Deschamps (France) and Lionel Scaloni (Argentina) all heading up contending teams.
Obviously international soccer is very different to the club game. The smaller amount of training time available to managers means that it’s impossible to replicate in the international arena the heavy control that Pep Guardiola got his Manchester City teams to impose onto games. That’s only achieved by repetition, which just isn’t practical when you only have the players once every couple of months on average.
So the style of play is generally cautious, with teams looking to build more slowly and leaving themselves less vulnerable to counterattacks and rapid transitions. And for the minnows – and in a 48-team World Cup, there are plenty of those – the key is to sit in a low block and hope not to get embarrassed.
According to a Globe story, each World Cup match played in Vancouver will cost approximately $100-million in required upgrades, while the Santa Clara venue has taxpayers on the hook for about $10-million per game. How can Canadian taxpayers justify the expenditures to satisfy FIFA demands, when host cities in the U.S. are spending about one-tenth of the cost?
Kelly: It’s frustrating, but I don’t see how this can be fixed. Santa Clara partnered with local megacorps like Levi’s, Genentech and EA Sports to cover costs. How many $50-billion dollar corporations does Toronto have? Or Vancouver?
There’s just a lot more money in the States, and a greater willingness to spread it around. So Canada had a choice – pay for it ourselves, or not do it.
I’m on the side of doing it. I believe it’s a wonderful boost to our collective self-esteem, and plain fun. I don’t mind my tax dollars being spent on fun that anyone with a TV and/or a willingness to go outside and mingle with their neighbours can share in.
Why does England get so much hype every World Cup? They always underperform and haven’t won anything since they hosted.
Attfield: Arguably for the same reason that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the biggest hockey team on the planet despite a trophy drought only one year shorter than England’s: they both come from large media centres that dominate their respective sports.
To be fair to England, they only get a crack at the World Cup every four years, but even when they’ve had good teams – which isn’t as often as their media makes out – they have certainly underperformed. I think it boils down in part to the fact that England is first and foremost a football country, and certainly seems to care more than most about football, as witnessed by the average attendance of 40,000-plus at Premier League matches. That applies pressure to the the players representing England at the World Cup.
Contrast that with a team like France, which had never cracked an average of 20,000 fans in Ligue 1 until after France won the 1998 World Cup, and has since gone on to win another, with some people still feeling that France cares more about rugby than soccer.
Davidson: As someone who grew up in England, I’ve got to say this question – while largely accurate – was like a kick in the stomach.
Expectations are always high with England boasting the best league in the world, albeit one full of foreign talent. England’s squad is full of millionaires – one of my favourite stories involving former Canadian goalkeeper Lars Hirschfeld is how he used to turn heads when he drove his VW Bug into a Tottenham parking lot filled with sportscars.
The Three Lions may break a few more hearts this time around, but I’m optimistic the trophy is coming home. Maybe.
