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I'm sure Chile will manage to build a great bid and its only -strong- disadvantage is the fact of neighbour Perú hosting the previous games (what would also work against Medellín). Imagine a lineup like this: Santiago Medellín Miami San José Panamá This would be a really tight competition. A single Central American bid would be stronger, they could cancel each other in the first rounds. Colombia is linving a great moment sports-wise and that would work in their favour, but right now I think is Santiago to lose.

40 teams in the WC is indeed absolute nonsense. Even in World Cups or Euros you get really poor teams playing the first round. Allocation of the 32 places is a no brainer, really. I don't get some people here saying Oceania deserves a full slot (see New Zealand's level last year) or even two (Fiji? lmao). What should really happen is AFC merging with OFC -NZL would actually benefit from playing against them-, and America being a single confed. This Cup was extremely good for American teams with 8 out of 10 advancing to the second round. Host 1 Europe 12 (right now is 13, a weird number for qualifying purposes and a bit too much for a global event) America 9 (right now is 4.5 + 3.5) Asia Pacific 5 (right now is 4.5 + 0.5) Africa 5 Europe is a weird case because of their leagues grabbing practically all football attention for three years until WC comes, but in 2014, despite demonstrating they're the best confederation, giving them 13 or 14 slots is just too much, a lot of their teams are just plain failures in the first round. CONMEBOL has been way more effective in terms of having its teams advance for the second round. UEFA should just have 8 groups in the qualifiers, winners advance, second places have a playoff.

Athens 1996, obviously. Therefore, I'd say 2004 should've gone to Cape Town. The 60s were perfect, Detroit anywhere there might have been interesting but never as defining as any of those cities. Actually, Detroit being the biggest Olympic loser ever is sort of an interesting omen. Rio 1936 would've been incredible in terms of architecture with Niemeyer, Costa and Burle Marx emerging, so they would have been probably involved. Le Corbusier could've been invited. And 2012 for booming Istanbul. Paris and NYC would've been great, too. Havana 1920. Antwerp, WTF.

FIFA shouldn't care about stories when analyzing a bid but facts they can face like how safe the 2011 U17 was and statistics proving Brazil is no safer than Mexico. Of course my country has some serious problems but I know they aren't critical enough to cancel a bid. Those nightmarish crime reports are probably from Fox News but I can assure you most of our colonial cities and beach resorts are safe destinations. Mexico has the infrastructure, money and passion to build a serious bid for 2026.

Co-hosting is lousy indeed. That security/economy argument on Mexico is tiring and superficial. We hosted Pan Ams and an incredibly successful U-17 FIFA WC in 2011, our bloodiest year ever according to media. Brazil is hosting WC and Olympics to murder rates similar to Mexico, which are lowering. Our economy may not be the tiger The Economist was talking about some months ago but its solid, and our tycoons seem to be in love with football right now. Our politicians, both in the government as in the football federation are awful but if there's one thing we can pull is a World Cup. We've done it in short notice like in 1986, with seven years we would do wonders. We have the stadia and the overall structure. DF, Guadalajara, Torreón and soon Monterrey will have WC-ready venues. Many billionaires have teams that could upgrade their stadiums immediatly, I'm talking Slim -new in the business-, Azcárraga, Salinas Pliego and the Zambrano family. Add León, Pachuca, Tijuana, Cancún, Morelia and Puebla to the cities I mentioned and you have a solid slate to start with. And remember you can't buy passion for football. CONCACAF is likely to support the US but a Mexican bid would be surprisingly strong.

The US shouldn't even bother to bid if they don't take Pan Ams seriously. We never see anything close to their A-teams in Athletics or Swimming (same goes for Caribbean sprinters). I can picture some Pan Ams happening in the US in 2023 and absolutely no one there paying attention. This should be avoided. I actually believe cities like SF, NO and Miami would make great hosts but media and certain federations should have more faith in Pan Ams in order to give some credit to a US bid. Imagine Team USA facing the top Brazilian swimmers or Caribbean runners? That'd make great games. This competition is much more important to Latin American countries and as long as this continues I'll always prefer us to host them. Santiago is kinda boring but Chile deserves a competition like this. They are so organized, lol.