World Cup won’t come to Chicago in ’26; truly is our city's sporting loss

International soccer fans will get excited for the next month beginning Thursday, what with the World Cup tourney (played every four years) beginning with host nation Russia taking on the national team of Saudi Arabia.

We won't get a 2026 sequel … 

Considering that the U.S. national team didn’t play well enough in qualifying rounds to get a spot in this year’s World Cup, I expect that many U.S. fans will try to downplay the significance of the event and will focus their attention on 2026 – when the tourney will be played on the North American continent.

SOCCER FANS OF this nation will be able to see World Cup matches without having to make international trips – except those of us from Chicago.

For the North American host effort (which will have opening matches in Mexico and Canada along with quarterfinals matches in other cities and the championship game possibly in the New York metropolitan area) is bypassing the Second City.

Not that this is a surprise. Back in March, city officials said they didn’t want to cooperate with the demands of FIFA (the international association that governs soccer around the world) in order to be considered as a host city. They also have memories of U.S. Soccer Federation officials being less-than-respectful to bids to include Chicago in U.S. World Cup presentations for other years past.

Of course, anybody who pays attention to the world of international soccer knows that FIFA is the kind of organization that expects everybody to cater to it (to kiss its fat behind with a symbolic big, wet sloppy smooch). Chicago didn’t want to do so – so we’re out.

THOSE OF US from Chicago will have to settle for the play of the Chicago Fire (and possibly that new team to be created to play in a stadium to be built somewhere on the city’s North Side). Either that, or travel to places like Kansas City, Cincinnati or Nashville – the places under consideration for matches that are closest to Chicago.

Either that, or we’ll have to relive the memories of 1994 – which was the only other time the World Cup tourney was played in the United States.

… to the 1994 World Cup opening ceremonies, which were held at Soldier Field

That year, the championship game was in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with semi-final games in Washington, D.C. and New York. But the opening ceremonies of the month-long event, along with the initial matches, were played right in Soldier Field.

As in the aging stadium on the lakefront that had significant historic character; not the current structure with the spaceship-like structure built within its outer walls.

BUT THIS TIME around, we won’t be a part of the international spectacle – which likely is the lasting aftermath of the 2016 Olympic affair.

Remember how then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was all anxious to have the Summer Olympic Games for that year held in Chicago, only to have the International Olympic Committee prefer the thought of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. And the thought of Chicago finishing fourth out of the four finalist cities?

Our political people felt burned by the world of international sports, and it seems Rahm Emanuel had no desire for a repeat. Which means we won’t be a part of the spectacle, while places like Edmonton (in Alberta, Canada) and Orlando (the home of Mickey Mouse) will be.

The other three times ...

We’ll most likely have to settle for watching the spectacle on television, just as we’ll be doing for the next month.

AND WITHOUT THE U.S. national team’s involvement, I’m sure the level of xenophobic nonsense from NASCAR fans trying to claim that Southerners driving cars around an asphalt track is a significant sporting event will rise to all-time highs in coming weeks.

… the World Cup came ...

If anything, that aspect if part of what intrigues me about international soccer – a significant athletic spectacle (you try running up and down a pitch for 90-plus minutes at a time) that manages to infuriate some so significantly.

… to the North American continent

It was nice (sort of) to see President Donald Trump use one of his less-noxious Tweets to say a continental World Cup was a wonderful spectacle.

Although I also have to admit a more pleasing notion is that Trump’s presidency will be long over by the time the 2026 World Cup is actually staged – all the more reason our society should look forward to the event.

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EXTRA: Mexico – 2; U.S.A. – 1

I confess to watching the U.S./Mexico soccer matchup Friday as much to see if there would be any xenophobic outbursts as to see the quality of the national teams as they both try to qualify for the World Cup tourney to be held in 2018 in Russia.
 

The hero, or villain, of Friday's match

The presidential election that gave us Donald Trump, who centered much of his campaign rhetoric on bashing Mexico and Mexican-Americans gave this game (just three days following Election Day) a potentially nasty undertone.

YET PEOPLE SEEMED to behave, which was a plus.

Except for some outbursts of a “U.S.A., U.S.A.” chant that cropped up just after the U.S. team began the second half with a game-tying goal, there seemed to be a mellow mood from the fans who gathered in Columbus, Ohio, for the match – a site usually chosen because officials can count on a pro-U.S crowd to predominate. A match played in a place like Soldier Field could easily provide a capacity crowd rooting as vociferously for El Tri as a crowd at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca.

In fact, the American Outlaws group that models itself after soccer hooligans but actually consists of too many mellow suburbanite types to be dangerous actually made its own effort to urge its members to tone down any anti-Mexico chants.

They even made a point of leading a group singing of “This Land Is Your Land” – a song that the “God Bless America”-type crowd likes to think is borderline subversive. Even though I suspect Woody Guthrie was more of a “real American” than many of the people who go about using that label to describe themselves.

THIS MATCH’S RESULT was particularly unique because the U.S. team actually had a streak of victories against Mexico when playing Mexico, one that dates back a few years.

 

Woody would have approved

The score of 2-0 has become so common that U.S. soccer interests have started to view it as a predictable outcome. Which I’m sure makes Mexican-Americans across the nation fidgety.

And made the 2-1 victory, with Rafael Marquez Alvarez scoring the winning goal just a couple of minutes before match’s end, all the more enjoyable.

But for those rooting for the United States, keep in mind there are still more qualifying matches to occur – and it is very likely that both the United States AND Mexico will wind up earning a trip to Russia for a chance at a World Cup championship.

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29 days and counting ‘til World Cup; and Chicago gets included in festivities

We’re just under one month away from the World Cup – the international sports tourney where the best national futbol clubs of the world convene to compete for something as significant as the Super Bowl fantasizes itself to be.

A local dose of pre-World Cup action on June 3

This year, of course, the action is in Brazil. Anybody from Chicago is going to have to spend some big bucks to make the trip to the southern hemisphere if they want to be able to say they saw world-class soccer.

TRUST ME, I made the mistake of going to see Major League Soccer matches during the last World Cup tourney in 2010. The level of play of the Chicago Fire and the teams they compete against just isn’t the same!

But it’s not like we in Chicago are totally cut out of the festivities.

I found it interesting that the Mexican national team that will compete is including a few last-minute exhibitions (“friendlies,” in soccer-speak) to warm up – with one of them scheduled for Soldier Field.

It will be right on the shores of Lake Michigan that Mexico’s Tri-colors will take on the national team from Bosnia-Herzegovina come June 3.There’s the potential for 50,000 or more people to pack their way into the bowl to see the two teams make whatever final adjustments they feel are necessary to avoid embarrassing themselves in Brazil.

NOT THAT I’LL be among those on hand.

For one thing, I have some work these days that will keep me busy that night. Although I also was appalled at the $240-plus price for a single ticket for the match.

Maybe I could scout around and find something a bit cheaper. But I just can’t envision paying that much for a friendly between two teams that have little chance of winning the whole thing. And I wonder about the sensibilities of anyone who has no problem paying such money.

The World Cup itself is being played this year between June 12 and July 13. The U.S. national team plays its first round matches on June 16 (against Ghana), June 22 (against Portugal) and June 26 (against Germany).

LOCALLY, PEOPLE WILL be able to gather at Grant Park, where Crain’s Chicago Business reports that the U.S. Soccer Federation plans to erect giant video screens so people can gather in large crowds and cheer endlessly (or so they hope) for U.S. goals.

Envisioning a video screen supplying soccer, instead of a band

 

Perhaps some people would find such a crowd to be an ample substitute for being in the stands at the real match. Personally, if I’m going to do nothing more than watch television, I suspect I’ll do it in the comfort of home.

Which is how I suspect I’m going to follow the World Cup. Don’t be surprised if – come next month – I have the television tuned in the background to the matches while I write about whatever issues of concern take place in Chicago.

I recall the same sentiment some 20 years ago – which was the one time the World Cup tourney was held in the United States, with the opening ceremonies and first few matches played right here at pre-renovation Soldier Field.

OF COURSE, THAT was during my stint working and living in Springfield. So even then, I was watching televisions at the Statehouse, trying to catch a few minutes of action here and there while everybody else went about the business of trying to govern the state.

RAUNER: Four more months to talk

As for this year, it all makes me wonder if for the upcoming month, I will be among those who find the plight of the United States and Mexico national teams (both of which could find themselves eliminated following the first round) more intriguing than anything that comes from the mouths of Rahm Emanuel or Bruce Rauner.

They’ll both have several months after the World Cup to spew their rhetoric that will anger so many people in so many ways.

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