ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
The World Cup is kicking off next summer. Most of the world calls it football. We call it soccer. But you'll actually hear both terms used on the air this year since the tournament is co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Also this year brings a new format - 48 countries instead of the usual 32, which means some countries are celebrating their first ever appearance, namely Cape Verde from Africa, Uzbekistan and Jordan from Asia. The final lineup isn't set yet, but to help us tackle - ha, ha - what's ahead, we have Paul Tenorio from The Athletic. Hey, Paul.
PAUL TENORIO: Hi. Thanks for having me.
LIMBONG: All right, so these new countries - this is kind of their big Super Bowl moment, right? I was reading, I think in Cape Verde, some local authorities even granted residents the afternoon off. And now that they're competing on the world stage, what can we expect from them?
TENORIO: Well, I think certainly it's going to be an uphill battle for many of these smaller countries who have yearned to get to this stage but are still well behind some of the more developed nations, some of the bigger soccer powers, of course. The point really is about including these countries in this big wide stage that is the World Cup.
LIMBONG: All right, let's talk about logistics. We know that Iran has qualified. It's the only country that's also part of another very different kind of list, which is the travel ban that President Trump announced in June. Now, players will be allowed to get visas, but what about the fans? And with more visa restrictions, how will this World Cup be kind of different for everybody?
TENORIO: I mean, the reality right now when it comes to immigration in the United States is that it is a highly political and very complicated issue. And you also just have the length of time it takes for many, many people to come visit this country from countries all over the world that, you know, aren't going to have the time to get a visa by the time their teams qualify. Many times, these processes take two or three years, and some of these countries have only just learned that they're going to be qualified and playing in next summer's World Cup.
And of course, that's different than it was in Qatar. We were able to sign up for an app, show that you had World Cup tickets, and you were able to get a visa to go to the tournament in Qatar. It'll be different here in the United States.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
TENORIO: But I think already we're starting to see the influences of politics on this tournament - Donald Trump saying that, you know, if he doesn't feel a city is safe enough, that he will tell FIFA to move the tournament out of those cities. Now, we don't expect that to actually happen. It would be very complicated. There are contracts, of course, between the host cities and FIFA. But Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, has a very close relationship with Donald Trump. How will cities like Seattle and Los Angeles be able to interact with the federal government ahead of the tournament?
And then of course, I think, for fans that want to go to the games, we've - you know, I live in Chicago. We've seen ICE raids all over the streets here. You know, will that be something that we see outside of stadiums? It's something definitely worth watching next summer.
LIMBONG: How do you rate the chances of the U.S. men's team this year?
TENORIO: There's been three positive results in a row over September and October. This is, of course, a team that was considered to be the, quote, "golden generation" of American soccer, a young talented group of players. Can they live up to that potential? We'll see. The expectation for them is certainly to get through the knockouts. But I think anything short of a quarterfinal would be considered a failure, and the hope is that they can do something that no U.S. team has done since 1930, when the tournament was much smaller, and that's advancing to the semifinals.
LIMBONG: That's Paul Tenorio from The Athletic. Paul, thank you so much.
TENORIO: Thank you.
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