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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Squiz Podcast, where your shortcut to being informed.
This episode is brought to you by BHP. BHP plays a big role in the Australian economy, from the tax it pays, the small, local and Indigenous businesses it backs, regional communities it supports, and how it contributes to the broader economy. The upcoming men's FIFA World Cup is promising to be one of the most unusual and newsworthy in the history of the tournament.
There are more teams than ever before, more games than ever before, more host countries than ever before. And then once you add to that the presence of the US as one of those hosts and US President Donald Trump looming large over everything, you've got an added layer of uncertainty.
So in this Squiz Shortcut, we'll take a look at how this year's tournament is different, some of the big news stories leading in, and what we can expect to see on the pitch. Squiz Shortcuts is the backstory to the big news stories. I'm Andrew Williams.
And I'm Anna Paikett.
Anna, welcome to Squiz Shortcuts. Lovely to have you here.
A big one. World Cup doesn't get much bigger than this, Andrew.
No, it is a huge event. It is one of, if not the biggest sporting event in the world. It comes along every four years and it normally features 32 teams all playing off for the title of the best footballing country in the world.
It's been running since 1930 when Uruguay won the first ever World Cup, which was also hosted in Uruguay. It's a hard tournament to win, though. Throughout the 22 tournaments since, and this is a really interesting stat, only eight countries have ever lifted the World Cup trophy.
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Chapter 2: What makes this FIFA World Cup different from previous tournaments?
32 teams have played in the World Cup. They were sorted into eight groups of four with two teams from each group making it through to the knockout stages.
It's different this year. 48 teams taking part in the tournament and that means that we are going to have 12 groups of four and then 32 of those teams go through to the knockout stages. Now, if you are good at maths and your brain's starting to fritz a little bit, it is quite a complicated process to qualify and we'll explain a little bit more of it
later on but we'll also include a link in the episode notes so you can see exactly how it's going to work this time around as for why this change has been brought in fifa says a bigger tournament means more countries get to play which helped grow the game around the world of course it's not just to get more countries involved though more countries means more games which means more tickets which means more revenue money is always a big part of these sorts of decisions but not everybody is happy about this expansion it has faced a lot of criticism too
Critics say that it's going to dilute the quality of the football being played by inviting 16 more countries along who don't have the same quality of players and coaches on their squads. So this also means it's an extra game for the players that make the finals, meaning a longer tournament. It also reduces the amount of countries that could conceivably host the tournament.
There aren't many countries in the world with the sporting infrastructure to host 104 football matches between 48 countries like what's happening here."
And I mean, there was no one country that could do it in this case, because as I mentioned, we have three host countries this time around. For the first time ever, we have three co-hosts all on the same continent of North America, the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Yeah, the men's tournament has only ever been co-hosted once before. That was back in 2002 when South Korea and Japan did it. That tournament, by all reports, went very well. But we have a different political situation when it comes to these three countries.
Do we ever. So as you know, if you've been listening to us this year, the US has had significant issues with both Canada and Mexico. And in return, they've had significant issues with the US. So to the north, US President Donald Trump has regularly criticised Canada and made comments about it becoming the 51st state of the US, which went down like a sack of potatoes.
He also hit it with severe tariffs and he's done the same thing to Mexico.
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Chapter 3: How has the tournament format changed for this World Cup?
The common refrain at the time was that he'd completed football, he'd done everything that there was to do, and he'd gone out on top, but not to be. He's back again this year.
And Argentina are expected to once again be very strong contenders, as are Germany, Brazil and Portugal. And the other contender you'll hear a lot about, Andrew, is England.
Ah, we got there. We got there. Now, the England men's team is always a big story. As you would well know, it's a huge footballing country, the home of football. But it's been a long time since it's won a World Cup. I don't want to rub it in, but it's been a long time since it's won a World Cup.
no whether or not it's coming home is yet to be seen isn't it it's been a long time since 1966 the same year that england last hosted the tournament and that was actually the last year they wanted the closest they've come since then was a semi-final appearance in 1990 that's actually before i was born so i can't claim to say i got stuck in on that one and back in 2018 but then let's let's leave england behind let's get into australia
Yes, Australia have almost zero pressure on them coming into the World Cup, unlike England. That's the glory of being an underdog. So anyone that was paying attention to the 2006 World Cup will remember probably the excitement and anticipation around Australia's involvement there. That year was the first time that we'd managed to qualify since 1974.
And the Socceroos performed above expectations. It was only a narrow and controversial loss to Italy, who were the eventual winners in the knockout stages, that removed them from the tournament. I watched that live and I am still not entirely over it, even 20 years later.
Oh, Andrew, since that time, the Socceroos have qualified for the World Cup every time, but it was only in 2022 that they made it to the knockout stages again, being knocked out by the eventual winners in Argentina.
Yeah, have a habit of doing that. So if you beat Australia, you may well go on to win the tournament. So let's have a look at this year's squad. And it's a pretty young squad. Many of the players have never played at a World Cup before. So they're coached by Tony Popovich, who took over
for graham arnold in 2024 uh reports say they're a bit listless sort of at that point in their world cup qualification and then when popovich took over they started getting their act together and easily qualified so he has been a successful coach in the a league for a long time and the pundits who know more about this sort of thing than we do say that he values defensive effort and physical intensity above all else
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