Mexico fans have every reason to feel angry about joint 2026 World Cup bid

Three quick reactions after Mexico-USA-Canada joint World Cup bid.

The United States deserves the World Cup

Say what you want, but the United States deserves to host a World Cup. They were deceitfully stripped from the possibility of hosting it in 2022, and let's face it, beyond the realm of soccer people want to come to the United States. "America" is synonymous with Pop Culture, and there is a reason people wait long lengths of time for a piece of paper that lets them have the chance of taking a selfie with the Hollywood sign.

Furthermore, forget the whole "the sport has grown exponentially in the United States" narrative. Brazil is perhaps not the best example of how a World Cup should be carried out, but part of what made the 2014 World Cup special was that the tournament was being held in an area of the world where people have only recently been given the opportunity to prosper at a much more rapid pace. In that respect, Brazil 2014 was more of a Latin American party, concocted of natives of Latin America and U.S. citizens of Latin American descent. As oppose to Russia and Qatar, the United States would help enhance the representation of people a little better, especially those in Latin America.

But sharing a World Cup with Canada and Mexico...

Let's talk games. United States Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati didn't leave much mystery when he said the plan is to have the United States host 60 of the 80 games, with Canada and Mexico hosting 10 each. Basically, Mexico should not be happy.

For a country of 120 million that far and large has a bigger soccer culture than the United States and Canada combined, this doesn't sound very fair. That specific little detail in the opening from Gulati about the Statue of Liberty, talking around the obvious political issues that plague the United States at the moment, only reinforces the idea that this three-country scheme is designed more to benefit the United States than anybody else. Mexico fans and media have every reason to feel angry and used.

Expectations for Mexico would be high

At the end of the day, what matters is what happens on the field. 2026 is far away, and we won't know if this will be the winning bid until 2020. But that doesn't mean Mexico can't start working towards a sound project for 2026. It almost seems like every World Cup is a historic opportunity for Mexico to do something special. They won't get a more historic opportunity than this one.