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The big question is whether a proper, balanced qualifying schedule will ever exist on the women's side. World Cup expansion on the men's side will erode the drama of the "The Hex" -- the six-team, 10-game final round of World Cup qualifying which saw each team play the other five once at home and once away. That has already expanded to eight teams. The format produced drama on every matchday, including in back-to-back cycles when Mexico barely even qualified for the intercontinental playoff on the final day (for 2014 World Cup), and the U.S. eliminated from the World Cup entirely on the final day of the subsequent qualifying.
Like FIFA expanding the Men's World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, the expansion of the Women's World Cup to 32 teams next year means that six of the eight regional finalists keep World Cup hopes alive coming out of the CONCACAF W Championship. It is difficult to find any format which would make that dramatic, but there are options which would allow each nation to host final-stage games and harbor greater hopes for a longer period of time.
For better or worse, each CONCACAF nation boasts peculiar challenges which make playing there difficult for visiting sides. From a flooded field in Trinidad, to a raucous crowd in Mexico, or hotel alarms getting pulled in the middle of the night in Honduras -- all of which are stories told on the men's side -- there are serious challenges to life on the road which can test the mental fortitude of even the best teams.
Canada and the U.S. -- especially as more professionalized teams with resources like private chefs -- simply don't face this type of adversity in games that matter. Not until the World Cup or Olympics themselves.
How would the U.S. have handled early pressure from Haiti in the opener, when the Americans nearly conceded three times in the first half, had they been playing in front of a sellout crowd in Port-au-Prince? How much more difficult would it have been for the U.S. to beat an organized Costa Rica side in a must-win game if the Americans couldn't hear themselves communicate in Saprissa? And how much better would everyone be for it, from the U.S. gaining valuable experience in adversity to challenger nations growing interest in their women's teams.
Like FIFA expanding the Men's World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, the expansion of the Women's World Cup to 32 teams next year means that six of the eight regional finalists keep World Cup hopes alive coming out of the CONCACAF W Championship. It is difficult to find any format which would make that dramatic, but there are options which would allow each nation to host final-stage games and harbor greater hopes for a longer period of time.
For better or worse, each CONCACAF nation boasts peculiar challenges which make playing there difficult for visiting sides. From a flooded field in Trinidad, to a raucous crowd in Mexico, or hotel alarms getting pulled in the middle of the night in Honduras -- all of which are stories told on the men's side -- there are serious challenges to life on the road which can test the mental fortitude of even the best teams.
Canada and the U.S. -- especially as more professionalized teams with resources like private chefs -- simply don't face this type of adversity in games that matter. Not until the World Cup or Olympics themselves.
How would the U.S. have handled early pressure from Haiti in the opener, when the Americans nearly conceded three times in the first half, had they been playing in front of a sellout crowd in Port-au-Prince? How much more difficult would it have been for the U.S. to beat an organized Costa Rica side in a must-win game if the Americans couldn't hear themselves communicate in Saprissa? And how much better would everyone be for it, from the U.S. gaining valuable experience in adversity to challenger nations growing interest in their women's teams.
On one hand, it would be funny to see the WNT have a taste of what the MNT goes through. On the other hand, we’d have stat lines that look like UEFA Women’s Qualifying.
(US and Canada Soccer would absolutely love to cash checks for those home games though)
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