World Cup
As 2026 World Cup qualifying gets into fast lane, Australia’s Arnold set to break coaching record
Having taken Australia to new heights at last year’s World Cup in Qatar, coach Graham Arnold will scale a peak of his own when the Socceroos kick off qualifying for the 2026 finals in North America.
The 60-year-old will guide his nation in a 59th ‘A’ international against Bangladesh on Thursday, eclipsing the Australian record held with friend and former Socceroos team mate Frank Farina.
While reluctant to make a big deal out of it, Arnold can expect a warm reception at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, particularly if his Socceroos thump the low-ranked South Asians.
Arnold, after all, steered a lightly-regarded squad to two wins and a round-of-16 appearance in Qatar, their best performance at a World Cup.
Just getting the Socceroos to the tournament was a triumph given the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
With Australia all but shutting its borders, the Socceroos had to play many of their home qualifiers abroad and only squeezed into the Qatar finals via playoffs.
Qualifying for the 48-team World Cup in 2026 should be a cakewalk by comparison, with eight Asian teams able to qualify directly, double the allocation for Qatar.
Arnold will again hope to break new ground as the first coach to take Australia to two World Cups, while regenerating a squad sapped of experience by player retirements.
“If I asked you how many players aren’t here who were in Qatar? Seventeen,” Arnold told a press conference on Wednesday.
“So, you know, it’s how quick national team football can go.
“I’ve always been one that keeps my eyes open — for not (just) plan A for now. I always have plan B and plan C for the future because things can change very quickly.”
FAILED CAMPAIGNS
Arnold has learned the hard way how to deal with the unexpected – both as player and coach.
He was part of four failed World Cup qualifying campaigns as a Socceroos forward in the 1980s and ’90s.
In front of a huge crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, he missed chances for a match-winning goal against Iran which would have sealed a ticket to the 1998 finals in France.
He was an assistant under Farina when the Socceroos failed to qualify for the next World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
Arnold took over as a caretaker boss after Guus Hiddink stepped down following Australia’s drought-breaking appearance at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
By his own admission, Arnold’s first stint in charge was a failure as a strong Socceroos squad bowed out of the 2007 Asian Cup in the quarter-finals.
“I tried to be someone who I wasn’t as a human being. I tried to be Guus Hiddink, be hard and all that stuff,” he recalled.
“I honestly say that the boys didn’t respect me as a coach in those days. And they were right because I hadn’t done anything as a coach.”
When Arnold returned for his second stint as boss in 2018 he carried more weight, having won domestic championships at two clubs.
Still, his ebullience occasionally got ahead of him.
His insistence that Australia would win every match at the 2019 Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates came back to bite him when the hosts knocked them out of the quarter-finals.
Arnold will have the chance to make amends at the next Asian Cup in Qatar, which starts in January.
He will hope to emulate Ange Postecoglou, the Tottenham Hotspur boss who coached the Socceroos to their maiden Asian Cup title at the 2015 event on home soil.
Without a single player in a top European league, Arnold’s squad boasts more heart than talent, and he will hope to unearth a gem or two before the next World Cup.
If none are forthcoming, Arnold will likely shrug, clear his throat and wax lyrical about “Aussie DNA”, the term he coined for the grittiness and graft that carried the Socceroos to acclaim in Qatar.
-Reuters
With just a year to go until the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in the United States, concerns are mounting over the impact of extreme summer heat on players and fans.
According to experts interviewed by the BBC, FIFA may be forced to adjust match schedules drastically—possibly even staging the World Cup final as early as 9 a.m.—to mitigate the risks posed by soaring temperatures.
The warnings follow sweltering conditions witnessed during recent international and Club World Cup matches held in the U.S., where athletes and spectators alike were exposed to intense heat and humidity.
One of the leading voices raising the alarm is Professor Mike Tipton, an expert in thermal physiology at the University of Portsmouth. Speaking to BBC Sport, he emphasised the potential health risks of playing in extreme conditions and recommended that matches begin as early in the day as possible.
“From a thermo-physiological point of view, for health and performance reasons, I would look to start matches as early as possible,” Tipton stated, suggesting that even the final—traditionally held in the afternoon or evening—could be moved to a morning kickoff.
Tipton went further, noting that the ideal solution would be to host the tournament during a cooler time of year, as was done with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which was shifted to November and December due to extreme heat.
However, with the 2026 tournament already locked in for June 11 to July 19, FIFA’s only remaining flexibility lies in scheduling match times.
The 2026 edition will be jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico across multiple cities, some of which are known for intense summer heat.
Health experts are urging organisers to prioritise player safety and fan well-being, warning that failing to act could lead to performance issues, heat-related illnesses, or worse.
FIFA has yet to publicly comment on any proposed changes to match schedules, but as temperatures continue to rise, pressure is mounting for the governing body to take decisive action ahead of football’s biggest tournament.
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FIFA’s Global Football Development chief Arsene Wenger acknowledged that the quality of pitches hosting Club World Cup matches in the U.S. was not good enough, but insisted it would be better when the country co-hosts the 2026 World Cup.
The pitches, often very dry and sprinkled with water during cooling breaks or at halftime, have been widely criticised, mainly by coaches and players of the European teams taking part.
“I’ve been personally on the pitch at Orlando,” former Arsenal manager Wenger said on Saturday. “It’s not at the level that the European clubs are used to because it’s not perfect, but that will be rectified for the World Cup next year.”
Paris St Germain coach Luis Enrique raised the issue early in the expanded Club World Cup tournament.
“The ball bounces like a rabbit,” Luis Enrique said after his team’s opening 4-0 win over Atletico Madrid.
“Today, for example, the field used to be artificial turf, and now it’s natural grass laid over it, which means it has to be watered manually. It’s a big problem for the way we play.”
“FIFA really needs to take this seriously. Not just the stadium fields but also the training pitches. If we’re calling this the best club tournament in the world, it should have world‑class facilities. I can’t imagine an NBA game played on a court full of holes.”
-Reuters
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Congo will be allowed to continue participating in the World Cup qualifiers despite missing two fixtures in March when they were banned, world football’s governing body FIFA said on Wednesday.
Congo were suspended from February to May because of government interference in the running of their football association (FECOFOOT) but the ban was lifted when officials returned to their positions and were handed back access to their headquarters and technical training centre.
Sports minister Hugues Ngouelondele had appointed an ad-hoc committee last year to run the association, claiming it needed to sort out disputes among association office bearers, but FIFA suspended FECOFOOT due to third-party interference, which violates its statutes.
During the ban, Congo were not allowed to participate in any international competition, which meant they did not honour 2026 World Cup qualifiers against Tanzania and Niger in March.
A FIFA spokesman told Reuters the points from those fixtures were forfeited and a 3-0 victory awarded to their opponents.
But they will continue in the qualifiers when they resume in September, even if they have no chance of qualifying.
Congo are scheduled to play Tanzania at home in September and conclude their fixtures in October with matches at Niger and Morocco.
Congo have no points in the group, which Morocco lead with 15 points, six more than Tanzania in second place.
The group winner qualifies for next year’s World Cup in North America while the runner-up has a possibility to participate in playoffs if they are among the four best second-placed teams in the nine African qualifying groups.
FIFA has taken a hard line on government interference in football matters with the likes of Chad, Kenya, Pakistan and Zimbabwe among those banned in recent years.
Congo were African champions in 1972 but have never been to a World Cup.
-Reuters
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