The 2018 World Cup came to an end last weekend with Belgium beating England for the second time to secure third place and France topping Croatia for the title. Now, after an enjoyable month of soccer, it’s time to look ahead. If you don’t have a particular club team, don’t worry. There will be plenty of international competition over the next four years for those who enjoyed rooting for either their current country, ancestral homeland, or some adopted country. Of course, club soccer will continue to be readily available with the English Premier League (on NBC networks), German Bundesliga (on FOX networks), and American MLS (on ESPN networks). But for those who prefer the stakes that come with playing for the national team, here’s a look ahead at what will be happening over the next four years before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
U.S. Soccer
The United States Men’s National team (or USMNT for short) failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the first they missed since 1990. In the wake of that failure, nearly all of the top brass in the national organization lost their jobs. First and foremost, the USMNT will need to hire a new manager. Will the US Soccer Federation take the safe route and hire an MLS coach or will they go out on a limb for a big “splash” signing and go after one of the high-profile European coaches that is on the market? Some other federations may part ways with their managers in the wake of the World Cup, so the decision-makers in the United States should (in theory) have a quality pool of candidates for the job.
The new USMNT coach will be thrown right into the fire as the US has scheduled four marquee friendly games (dubbed the “Kickoff Series”) in the fall of 2018. The Kickoff Series will feature home games against Brazil on September 7 and Mexico on September 11. The USMNT will then travel to Europe in November where they will take on England on November 15 and Italy on November 20. These four games should provide an early barometer for the relative strength of the US Men’s team as they prepare for the 2019 Gold Cup, the biannual CONCACAF Championship Tournament which will be held in the United States in June of 2019.
Also this fall, the US Women’s National Team will begin the final round of CONCACAF qualifying to secure their spot in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The final round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying will take place in October of 2018 with three nations advancing to the Women’s World Cup. The US Women’s National Team is the defending Women’s World Cup Champions after defeating Japan to win the 2015 tournament. The next Women’s World Cup will take place in France in June of 2019.
European Soccer
The UEFA Nations League is a new creation that will bring the excitement of “promotion and relegation” in club play to the international level. The 55 European nations are split into 4 “leagues” (with the Top 12 teams in A, the next 12 in B, the next 15 in C and the bottom 16 in D) and each “league” is split into 4 groups. The UEFA Nations League competition will largely replace “friendlies” on the international schedule, with the benefit of creating numerous high-profile matchups, starting in September 2018.
The League A groups are:
Group 1: Germany, France, Netherlands
Group 2: Belgium, Switzerland, Iceland
Group 3: Portugal, Italy, Poland
Group 4: Spain, England, Croatia
The winners of each of these groups will play in a bracketed tournament in June 2019 to determine the first UEFA Nations League Champion. The winners of the 4 League A groups get the additional benefits of receiving preferential seeding in Euro 2020 qualification. The UEFA Nations League also has a promotion/relegation component where the last place finishers in each of the League A groups will be relegated to League B for the next tournament (in 2020) while the winners of the four League B groups will be promoted to League A. The promotion and relegation component is included for teams moving between League B and C and between League C and D.
The UEFA Nations League will serve as the first step in qualifying for the next European Championships (or “Euro 2020“). Of the 24 teams in the Euro 2020 tournament, 20 will qualify through the traditional route of group play. The 55 European nations will be drawn into 10 groups for round robin play with the Top 2 teams from each group earning a spot in the tournament. The draw will take place in December 2018 with the round robin games occurring in 2019. For the final four spots in the field, one spot will go to a team from each of the UEFA Nations League “Leagues.” This means that one team from League D will qualify for the Euro 2020 tournament.
2019 Confederation Tournaments
The Copa America 2019 tournament will feature all 10 South American (CONMEBOL) nations along with two “guest” nations – Japan and Qatar. This will give the tournament 12 teams, enabling for a round robin group stage featuring 3 groups of 4 teams. Eight teams advance to the knockout stage where the second spot in the 2021 Confederations Cup will be clinched. Chile won the 2015 Copa America tournament and followed up by winning the special 2016 Copa America Centenario tournament. However, Chile stumbled down the stretch of CONMEBOL qualifying and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
Similarly to South America, the Asian Cup will be held in 2019. This tournament will be one of the first of the year, hosted by the United Arab Emirates between January and February. The 24 team field for the tournament is already set. Japan, the only AFC nation to reach the knockout stage at the World Cup, has won the Asian Cup 4 times (the most of any nation). Australia has reached the Final of the tournament in 2011 and 2015, losing in extra time in 2011 but beating South Korea in extra time in 2015. Iran and South Korea both exceeded expectations at the World Cup this year and could also be threats to win the title.
Unlike the Copa America and Asian Cup tournaments which are held every 4 years, the African Cup of Nations is a biennial tournament. The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations will be held in Cameroon in June. Qualification for that tournament is still ongoing with the remaining matches set for September, October, and November of 2018 with the last matches in March of 2019. There are 12 groups of 4 teams where the top 2 from each group will advance to the Cup of Nations. Egypt has won the most Africa Cup of Nations tournaments (7) and finished second in 2017 to Cameroon. While no African teams advanced to the knockout stage at the World Cup, there were a number of exciting sides from Mo Salah’s Egypt to the fun and fast Senegal team that fell short because of fair play points, and the Nigeria team that would have advanced if not for a late Argentina goal.
2020 Summer Olympics
Soccer (or “Football” as it is technically known by the International Olympic Committee) is a summer Olympic sport that is contested by both men and women. Men’s Soccer is not a “major” tournament due to bizarre Olympic rules. These rules stipulate that men’s soccer teams must be comprised almost entirely of players under the age of 23. Teams are permitted to have 3 players over the age of 23 on the roster, but the Olympics are essentially a U-23 tournament. For the United States, who has failed to reach the last two Olympics, the CONCACAF qualifying is in October 2019.
Women’s Soccer is a major tournament with full national teams competing. The CONCACAF qualifying is in February 2020 as the US Women’s team will look to get back atop the podium. The US Women’s team won gold in the London 2012, Beijing 2008, and Athens 2004 Olympics. However, they were shockingly knocked out by Sweden on penalty kicks in the first round of the knockout stage in the Rio 2016 games. That marked the first time since women’s soccer was added as a sport in the 1996 games that the United States did not medal in the event.
2022 World Cup
The qualification process for the 2022 World Cup has not yet been announced. The number of qualification spots allocated per confederation will remain the same as it was for the 2018 World Cup. UEFA has the most spots with 13, followed by CAF (Africa) with 5, CONMEBOL (South America) and AFC (Asia) with 4.5, CONCACAF (North America) with 3.5, and OFC (Oceania) with 0.5. One important note is that because of the oppressive summer heat in Qatar, the 2022 World Cup will be held in November and December rather than in the summer months of June and July. The 2021 Confederations Cup will feature Qatar along with 2018 World Cup Champions France and the winners of the Confederation Championships (CONCACAF Gold Cup, UEFA Euro, Asian Cup of Nations, Africa Cup of Nations, OFC Nations Cup) will compete. The Confederations Cup is generally seen as a “warm up” for the World Cup for the host nation to test the ability of their venues to handle large crowds and work on the details of an international tournament before the actual World Cup takes place.
