UEFA is the last to start the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification

Competition in an era of turbulence

US President Donald Trump is introducing customs duties against Mexico (the next one was introduced against Mexico on 16 March) threatening Canada, and this cannot but worry the FIFA leadership, since these three countries must jointly host the 2026 FIFA World Cup games. The last time difficulties of a political and economic nature arose was exactly 40 years ago, when Colombia dropped its responsibility for the right to host the 1986 World Cup and Mexico promptly accepted it. Interestingly, in 1982, Colombia hosted the Basketball World Cup under very specific conditions, which ended with the victory of the USSR team. Our team's centre Nikolai Deryugin recalled in an interview with the author of the article that our team was accompanied by motorcades of motorcyclists and guarded by machine gunners. This was a response to threats from the owner of the local drug cartel, Pablo Escobar... Be that as it may, Mexico hosted the World Cup with dignity, since 16 years earlier it had already hosted for the first time. Now, hosting the World Cup will cost much more, and each of the sanctions adopted by the Americans will hit the economies of neighbouring countries, which in a year may not have time for football.

Political and economic turbulence has long avoided major international competitions, with the exception of the coronavirus, which cancelled two Universiades in 2021. The Winter Olympics in China went well, and Kazakhstan, which almost suffered a coup in the winter of 2022, was bidding to host it. Potential complications threatened the football World Cup if India and China, whose political leaders had expressed the idea of a joint World Cup, took on its organization. And the tension between these two countries is not only due to Tibet. And the choice of the Canada-Mexico triumvirate with the United States at the helm seemed the safest until Donald Trump came to the Oval Office.

Kazakhstan's unobvious chance

Russians will watch the final part of the World Cup, wherever it is held, on TV. When on Wednesday, according to the calendar synchronized with the international one, the Russian team met the Grenada team, some European teams began a relatively short selection process for the final part of the World Cup. By this time, the 13th round of the longest selection will have already taken place in South America, which includes 18 matches of local teams. The entire UEFA selection, including play-offs, may consist of 12 games. Moreover, in half of the qualifying groups (six out of 12), the matches will not begin until September. But in the other half, there are teams of interest that are worth talking about.

In Group J, Kazakhstan will try to throw down the gauntlet to Belgium, the European Championship medallist Wales and the European Championship participant North Macedonia. Sports Kazakhstan after 2023 has practically abandoned legionnaires in the national teams, that is, people with dual citizenship. This significantly changed the composition of the hockey (with the puck and with the ball), water polo teams, but practically did not affect football, since the local team was based on its own personnel. The current composition of Kazakhstan includes Nuraly Alip (Zenit), Maxim Samorodov (Akhmat), as well as Bakhtiyor Zainutdinov, Bauyrzhan Islamkhan, Islambek Kuat and Marat Bystrov. Little is known about the latter, since he began his career in Magnitogorsk, at the time when the local club had amateur status and Andrey Knyazev who is now working at Rubin FC worked as vice president there.

On 22 March, they will have an away match with Wales, which will determine a lot in the further fight for second place with the prospect of reaching the play-off stage. There is no doubt about Belgium's leadership in this company.

The Cypriots have had an extremely successful European season

The most interesting match of the opening stage between the vice-champion of Europe England and Albania will be held in Group K on 21 March. They were in the same qualifying group before the last World Cup (5-0 and 2-0), at the European Championship, so to speak, in the neighbourhood. England seemed to have claimed the right to host the two previous World Cups, which were held in Russia and Qatar, and having lost these elections, they pettily and informationally slandered their hosts. For some reason, now it has not even claimed the right to host the 2026 World Cup, where it will undoubtedly qualify. Its main rival in Group G is Serbia, which will enter the qualification later.

Group G has gathered a trio — Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Malta, which has joined them. There is still one more participant in the selection, Spain or the Netherlands, that has not yet been determined. In Group H, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania decided to delay the start, giving Cyprus and San Marino the opportunity to play. The situation is reminiscent of a housewarming party, when a cat is let into an uninhabited home, and for three days, until March 24, the tournament table will look very unusual, since it can be headed by Cyprus or, which will be even stranger, San Marino. In case of a draw, both teams at the same time. For the sake of eccentricity, San Marino's leadership would look better, although we will bet on Cyprus.

The islanders have been stirring up and intriguing for several years with the spasmodic development of club football. Rubin players Sergei Ryzhikov and Roman Sharonov flew there to work as coaches, having worked there for a year in total. Now there is ex-Rubin player Vitaly Astafyev, a former player of the Latvian national team. Local football circles include football figures Evgeny “Krasava” Savin* and Nikita “Lisp Nick” Kovalchuk. There you can trace club budgets with Russian participation, like Roman Dubov or Sergey Lomakin. This season, three local teams have reached the playoff round, these are 32 teams in the Challenger Cup, now you can trace how club success affects the national team. In the last selection, the Cypriots, who entered in the same group with Russia, shared the penultimate place with another outsider, Malta.

We are waiting for Norway to take off

Bodø-Glimt (its goal is defended by Russian Nikita Khaykin), representing Norway, a country where every year there are more and more talented footballers and the performance of the national team is getting worse. Even Iceland and Finland have already made it to the final part of the European Championships, and Norway continues to live with memories of the glorious past, when in the 90s the local team made it to the final part of the World Championships (twice) and Europe. The current draw gave the northerners an excellent chance, when there is a favourite, although it has not yet been determined (either Germany or Italy will lead the group), but the other opponents are much weaker. The first of them is Moldova, with which Norway will play away on 22 March, then Israel — on 25 March. Estonia is also among the opponents.

Norway is the main contender for the dark horse of the 2026 World Cup, which was previously Morocco, and at the European Championships Denmark (2021) and Wales (2016). A strong coach Ståle Solbakken (I remember, Rubin fought with his Copenhagen in the European Cup), a powerful attacking line of Alexander Sørloth, Erling Haaland, Martin Ødegaard. Now it needs to be balanced with talented reinforcements from the youth team in the person of Oscar Bobb, Warren Kamansi, Antonio Nusa, the son of former GDR national team player Uwe Rösler — Colin Rösler. The Norwegians' style is attacking, over the past three years they have crushingly beaten Armenia (9-0), Kazakhstan (5-0), Cyprus (4-0), Slovenia (3-0 and 4-1). At the same time, they were defeated by Austria (1-5), Spain and Turkey (0-3 each).

In the last group in the alphabet, L, we can definitely determine the team that will lead the qualification until the beginning of the summer. The Czech Republic will play the Faroe Islands on 22 March and Gibraltar on 25 March. In the confrontation with Montenegro (also, frankly, not a football giant), the Czechs will need to complete the minimum task: take second place to participate in the play-offs. The leader of the group will be either France or Croatia, such is the current UEFA selection system when the tournament starts, but all its participants are still unknown.

The Czechs were unnecessarily rude at the Euro

Since, apart from the Czechs, there is no one else to talk about from the group, let's focus on them. At the previous European Championship, they showed themselves to be the most inadequate team. 12 yellow and two red cards (one against Portugal, five against Georgia and six against Turkey, plus two expulsions in the game against the Turks). Another achievement was broken by their forward Antonin Barak: his red card in the 20th minute is the fastest expulsion in the history of the tournament. One point in three games, and the last place in the group. Even more inadequate was the comment of the coach of the Czechs Ivan Hasek (cousin of the famous hockey goalkeeper Dominik Hasek). Ivan's words that he is disappointed that a team with such potential for the future is going home. They wanted to demonstrate it there. The main reason for the failure is that we did not beat Georgia in the second round” — are intended for those who either did not see this match or are blind. Georgia drove the Czechs around on the grass for almost the entire match. After the European Championship, she crushed the Czechs and their potential in the Nations League with a score of 4-1.

What's interesting: at the Euro, the Czechs had Robin Granac, whose debut for the national team was extremely unsuccessful, when he made three scoring errors in two games. Having such a player in the team is like playing 10 against 12. 25 years ago, the Czech Republic already had such a character Petri Gabriel who made productive mistakes in games against Holland and France at the 2000 European Championship. His son Adam Gabriel is currently in the national team, but the main anchor of the team is Granac.

Why should we be interested in the start of the European selection, in which we are not participating? There is a suspicion that football may become the first team sport to which the Russians will be returned. There are several prerequisites for this.

UEFA and FIFA turned out to be the most adequate international organizations

The refusal to allow the Russian national team to participate in the play-off matches of the 2022 World Cup was one of the first, if not the first. But, as time has shown, FIFA and UEFA have been much more tolerant of our football players than their colleagues from other federations. The worst thing was the withdrawal of the 2022 Men's Volleyball World Championship. The International Ice Hockey Federation acted cruelly and ugly. By postponing the World Junior Championship to the summer of 2022, they did not allow either Russia or Belarus to participate. They excluded these teams from the official list of participants in the 2022 Winter Youth Festival where they managed to play at the end of 2021. These teams were not included in the selection for the 2026 Olympic tournament either.

FIBA Basketball dumped the Russians right during the selection for the 2023 World Championship, when we successfully passed the first stage, beating Iceland, Italy and the Netherlands. The Belarusians were eliminated along with us. The International Aquatics Federation, in addition to taking away the 2025 World Championship, which will be held this year in Singapore, did not put pressure on its European division LEN, and now we and the Belarusians are not among the participants in the selection for the 2026 European Championship.

Meanwhile, FIFA and UEFA, the only ones, left the Belarusian team among the participants in their tournaments. Do not think that it was not selected anywhere, at last year's Beach Soccer World Championship, the Belarusians took fourth place, causing protests from the Ukrainians, who refused to participate in the tournament. Therefore, it will not be surprising that the Russians will return to international starts already at the next selection for the 2028 European Championship.