Hope for a brave new world

The World Cup is constantly changing.Setting foot on new lands.Scale is expanded.Testing the second group stages, replacing the play-off matches of teams with points by sub-inferior goal difference, then head-to-head record.However, in the end, the championship cup still belongs to only 1 of the 8 familiar countries in Western Europe or South America.
Since Argentina in 1978, only 2 new champions have appeared, France and Spain.For the rest, perhaps a new world is still waiting to be born.

The overthrow from the pitch?

The question of whether a team outside of Europe or South America can win the World Cup has been raised with increasing urgency since Cameroon reached the quarter-finals in 1990, or Nigeria and Cameroon won Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000.

At the 2026 World Cup, the 2 most reliable candidates will face members of the elite group in the round of 32: Japan against Brazil and Morocco against the Netherlands (a team that has never won the World Cup but has reached 3 finals and in terms of both geographical and economic aspects, they are still representatives of the old order).

Both Japan and Morocco made a strong impression, maintaining their form in the group stage, but they reached this milestone through very different paths.

At the World Cup, in 1986, Morocco became the first African team to pass the group stage, before becoming the first team to reach the semi-finals in Qatar 4 years ago. It is undeniable that Morocco has benefited greatly from the overseas Vietnamese force (in the squad of 26 players, up to 19 were born outside of Morocco - 3 of them in the Netherlands), but their system is also developing. Mohammed VI Football Academy in the suburbs of Rabat has provided 4 players for the 2022 squad. This year there is only 1, but the program has been expanded to 4 other cities. It is completely reasonable to expect that in the next decade, the opportunity to go far will increase significantly for young players growing up right in Morocco.

In Japan, money is not a problem. The J.League, established in 1992, has been a resounding success. Western Europe is still the destination for the best players - only 3 people in this squad are still playing football in Japan - but they are all trained domestically. Major clubs in Europe are now no longer hesitant to sign players from the J.League. Their adaptation process is no longer too difficult. At the same time, the clearly defined Japanese football style has blossomed with the national team in 8 years under Hajime Moriyasu.

Fierce confrontations

Morocco will have to find a way to cope with Brian Brobbey's strength, the clash between Achraf Hakimi and Cody Gakpo is predicted to be decisive. Japan has never won a knockout match at the World Cup and for them, part of the battle will lie in psychology, although the fact that they came from behind to defeat Brazil in a friendly match in October last year may help ease that fear.

These are just 2 matches, both promising to be extremely competitive. Brazil and the Netherlands can completely win, and the 2 biggest hopes for a champion outside of traditional forces may disappear. But the fact that these matches create such great attraction in themselves has said a lot.