This World Cup will be the first to be hosted by three countries – the United States, Canada and Mexico – as opposed to the usual single nation. 2002 was an exception, when Japan and South Korea broke new ground by sharing the hosting duties. This year’s cohosts have usually enjoyed good relations, but these have become more difficult since US President Donald Trump began his second term in office. His threats to annex Canada as the “51st” US state and punitive tariffs have soured the mood between two historically close allies. US ties with Mexico have been strained over several issues including their shared border and Trump threatening, tacitly at least, to use military force to combat drug cartels operating in Mexico.
2. More teams, more games
Forty-eight teams taking part means many more games, a total of 104 compared to 64 at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when only 32 nations were involved. The opening match will be between Mexico and South Africa in Mexico City on June 11.
There will be 12 groups of four teams, compared to eight four years ago. The top two teams from each of the groups plus the best eight third-placed teams advance to the round of 32. This extra knockout round has been introduced to help whittle down the number of teams on the way to the final in New Jersey on July 19.
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More teams meant more opportunities for nations to make it to World Cup for the first time. Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan will all be making their debuts, which is great news for their fans, but critics worry that the increased number of teams could result in a drop in the overall quality of play.
The 2026 World Cup will be the first co-hosted by three countriesImage: Jia Haocheng/Xinhua/picture alliance
3. Mandatory hydration breaks
While hydration breaks are not new to football, FIFA has announced that all World Cup matches will feature two such breaks approximately 22 minutes into each half — regardless of the weather conditions.
Previously, referees were required to call cooling breaks 30 minutes into each half when the temperature at kickoff exceeded 31 degrees Celsius (87.8 degrees Fahrenheit). The change comes amid concerns about high temperatures expected in some of the host cities, as was the case at last summer’s Club World Cup in the US.
Conveniently for broadcasters, FIFA has confirmed that they will be allowed to cut away from matches to air commercials during these 3-minute breaks. This overcomes a problem that vexed US broadcasters during the 1994 World Cup and effectively breaks matches up into quarters – just like in two of the more popular televised sports in the United States, basketball and American football.
At last year’s Club World Cup, hydration breaks only occurred during games played at high temperaturesImage: Marco Bader/HMB-Media/IMAGO
4. Human rights concerns
A report released by Amnesty International in March warned that the World Cup poses “significant risks and impacts for fans players, journalists, workers and local communities alike.” The report is hardest on the USA, which is to host the vast majority of matches. It describes the situation there as a “human rights emergency” and points to what it calls a “recognizable pattern of authoritarian practices” in the country. It expresses particular concern about the conduct of ICE immigration agents deployed to some states.
Amnesty noted, among other things, that Mexico has mobilized 100,000 security personnel, including the military, in response to high levels of violence in the country.
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As for Canada, the report cited fears that homeless people could be further marginalized, particularly in host cities Vancouver and Toronto, as well as restrictions imposed on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.
Amnesty International criticized the actions of ICE agents in MinnesotaImage: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu/picture alliance
5. High costs of travel, tickets
The distances involved make travel expensive even for North America-based fans. Farthest apart among the venues are Vancouver and Miami – 4,507 kilometers (2,800 miles). If a Germany fan, for example, wanted to follow their team they would stand to rack up 2,619 kilometers to travel from Houston to Toronto to New Jersey for the group-stage matches alone.
Ticket prices are such a bone of contention that the fan organization Football Supporters Europe (FSE) has filed a lawsuit against FIFA with the European Commission over “excessive ticket prices” for games. With a month to go before the opening match on June 11, tickets for most group-stage matches remained on general sale. The top tickets for the USA’s opening match against Paraguay in Los Angeles were listed at $4,105 (€3,499) while for some less-in-demand games the cheapest seats were listed at $380.
FIFA’s own resale website, FIFA Marketplace, recently advertised tickets to the final at a cost of more than $2 million each.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino stands by the pricing, pointing to a low number of less expensive tickets made available to loyal national team fans through their federations. Speaking in Los Angeles, Infantino noted that the high prices simply reflected demand in an expensive market.
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“And if somebody buys a ticket for the final for $2 million, I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke to make sure that he has a great experience,” he promised.
Earlier this year, the United States and Israel launched a weeks-long war on Iran , after which the Iranian FA threatened to “boycott” its matches in the US. Trump later said that “for their own life and safety” it wouldn’t be appropriate for Iran to be there. Now Mexico has agreed to an arrangement in which the team is to be based there, only traveling across the border for its two matches in Los Angeles and the other in Seattle.
India’s teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has added another milestone to his rapidly rising career after being appointed vice-captain of the East Zone squad for the Duleep Trophy 2026. Fresh from winning the Player of the Series award during India’s tour of Zimbabwe, Sooryavanshi will serve as deputy to Ishan Kishan, who has been named captain of the East Zone side for the prestigious red-ball tournament beginning on August 23 in Bengaluru.
The vice-captaincy marks another major achievement for the youngster, who made his international debut during India’s tour of England earlier this month. Following a string of impressive performances for India and in domestic cricket, Sooryavanshi has now been entrusted with a leadership role in one of India’s premier domestic tournaments.
He is expected to open the batting alongside experienced Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran, who returns as the most seasoned player in the squad with more than 100 first-class appearances.
Ishan Kishan to lead experienced East Zone squad
Wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan will captain an East Zone side that blends experienced international cricketers with emerging talent. Veteran India pacer Mohammed Shami returns to the domestic circuit after missing international action since the 2025 Champions Trophy final. The 35-year-old featured for Bengal in the 2025-26 domestic season and also played 13 matches for the Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2026.
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The squad also includes India fast bowler Mukesh Kumar, all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed, Jharkhand batter Virat Singh, wicketkeeper Kumar Kushagra, and spin all-rounder Anukul Roy, who impressed during India A’s successful tri-series campaign in Sri Lanka earlier this year.
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Riyan Parag, Akash Deep miss out
East Zone will be without two prominent names, Riyan Parag and Akash Deep, both of whom continue their rehabilitation after undergoing surgeries. Parag is recovering from right shoulder surgery, while Akash Deep remains sidelined following back surgery. Neither player was considered for selection as they continue their recovery programmes.
East Zone Squad for Duleep Trophy 2026
Full Squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sudip Gharami, Mohammed Shami, Mukesh Kumar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Suraj Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan (captain), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (vice-captain), Virat Singh, Kumar Kushagra, Shikhar Mohan, Subranshu Senapati, Abhijit Sarkar, Anukul Roy and Denish Das.
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Standbyes: Ayush Loharuka, Sridam Paul, Sambit S Baral, Sharandeep Singh and Swastik Samal.
The Duleep Trophy, one of India’s premier first-class competitions, gets underway in Bengaluru on August 23.
The Philadelphia 76ers figure to be at or near the top of the Eastern Conference after a busy offseason that brought in Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, and a slew of others to join Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe on a talented roster. The Sixers now have one of the best rosters in the league and should be contending for a title in the upcoming season.
With that being said, the Sixers should still be at the top of the East. However, when asking former champion Jason Williams, he isn’t buying the Sixers:
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The Knicks are going to be better. Miami is going to be better. Orlando Magic will finish higher than the Sixers…Atlanta will finish higher.
Please be advised that the clip below contains language that some might consider offensive.
One has to wonder if Williams is just trolling, but he does have a point about a team like the Knicks, for example. That’s a team that has been together through all of the playoff wars and just won a championship. The Sixers will have to eventually match up with them in terms of chemistry and such.
However, the Magic is a big stretch. Orlando has a ton of talent led by Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and have a new coach in Sean Sweeney, but that duo has yet to really figure it out. They probably have more chemistry, but the Sixers are the supremely talented team. It’s hard to really envision the Magic finishing ahead of the Sixers in the 2026-27 season.
We’re now on Episode 3 of The Lab with PGA Tour Putting Performance Advisor Stephen Sweeney, and I’ve not been shy about how this experience changed my game. In Episode 1 we talked all about setup, and Sweeney basically changed every single part of how my body sets up to the ball. In Episode 2 he walked me through the idea of capture speed, and how staying consistent with your intended speed can help make more putts, and now for Episode 3 we’re tackling green reading. I wasn’t shy about green reading being the worst part of my putting performance, but one simple sentence ended up turning it all around.
As we know from previous episodes there’s basically three reasons a player will miss a putt. There are technical reasons, which include a small portion of the actual equipment in your hands, there’s speed control, and there’s the read you decided on in the first place. As Sweeney explains in the video, the majority of the time the problem starts with the read the player thought they had in their head.
“Any putt within 1º of the intended start line is not a technical reason for missing a putt,” Sweeney says.
To get started working on my green reading skills he had me mark a point on the Platform Golf putting green in his Jupiter, Florida studio. This point was meant to be where I thought the putt was going to break. I accidentally failed to follow directions and I ended up signaling the spot where I was trying to start my putt.
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Sweeny fired up his Quintic Overhead technology and marked that spot on the green so we could keep track of where I thought the line was, as well as the several putts I would end up hitting before we figured it out. (Spoiler: I was very, very far off.) I just couldn’t seem to match the speed and line that was needed for this seemingly simple indoor putt. By the fourth try I was hitting the ball way too hard for my own comfort level, so clearly something was wrong in the intention for the line that I created.
While I continued to miss putts, Sweeney expressed his frustration with how frequently amateurs under-read their putts.
“I go out and play and I’ll hear caddies from this distance say something is a ball right or a ball left. It’s never a ball outside left. Not from this distance.”
After several missed putts, Sweeney dropped a stat on me that completely changed the way I think about reading a green:
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When you miss a putt on the high side, the miss will only be affected by about 50% of the read. If you read a putt one foot out to the right of a hole and you miss on the high side, the miss is only going to be about 6″ assuming you got the speed even remotely correct. When you miss on the low side though, the miss is multiplied by a factor of three. If you read a putt one foot out to the right and you end up missing low, you could end up three feet gone on the low side.
Read that again! That statement changed everything for me.
Essentially when you miss on the high side, you’re able to be more aggressive with the putt itself. Mostly because you’re hitting the putt uphill for a longer duration of time, the effect of gravity towards the end of the putt is decreased. If you miss on the low side, you’re letting gravity impact the ball much sooner in the duration of the putt and it will only continue to pull on the ball worse.
Sweeney finished off with a funny story mentioning that he does teach Aim Point but he knows it’s not for everyone.
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“When it comes to the amateur game one of the best tips I got was actually from an 8-handicap dentist. He said that whatever he thinks the read is, he just plays double. Now it’s probably the easiest piece of advice I can give to an amateur golfer.”
FIFA said Tuesday it plans to sell a stake in the business operations of the World Cup and its other competitions through the creation of a semi-private subsidiary. The decision marks a dramatic attempt to reshape the commercial landscape of global football, while opening a new front in a long-running battle with Europe for control over the massive wealth generated by the sport.
Sir Garfield Sobers was called the “greatest all-round cricketer the world has ever known” by former team-mate Sir Clive Lloyd at the legendary West Indies player’s state funeral in Barbados.
Lloyd described all-rounder Sobers, who died aged 89 on 17 July, as “a man who lived in the hearts and minds of Caribbean people and who became a source of inspiration to millions throughout the world”.
An entertaining left-handed batter and bowler of seam and spin, Sobers played 93 Tests between 1954 and 1974, scoring 8,032 runs and taking 235 wickets.
The funeral was staged at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, the principle ground in Barbados and home to a pavilion named after Sobers.
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Lloyd and fellow West Indies legends Brian Lara and Desmond Haynes were among those who spoke at the state service of thanksgiving, which was also attended by Barbados president Jeffrey Bostic, prime minister Mia Mottley and Barbadian music superstar Rihanna.
West Indies Test captain Roston Chase, who comes from Barbados, vice-captain Jomel Warrican and the current side’s Barbadian players were also in attendance, having completed a Test victory over Pakistan on Monday, winning by 90 runs inside four days in Trinidad.
“Sir Garfield Sobers was not merely the outstanding cricketer of his generation,” Lloyd added. “He brought to the beautiful game a rare combination of brilliance, imagination, courage and joy.”
Sobers’ coffin was draped in the flag of Barbados and set off from the Parliament Buildings in Bridgetown on a gun carriage for a formal procession through the nation’s capital.
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On arrival at the stadium, the carriage passed through a guard of honour of raised cricket bats.
“This is not a sad moment,” Lara said of his mentor. “This is a moment for us to celebrate and I hope you feel the same. Today we celebrate the remarkable life of the greatest all-round cricketer.
“We celebrate a man who gave so much to his family, to Barbados, to the West Indies and all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.”
Sobers scored 365 not out against Pakistan in 1958 – an effort which stood as the record Test score for 36 years.
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He was also named one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the 20th century.
During his stint at Nottinghamshire in 1968, Sobers became the first player to hit a six off all six balls in an over in a first-class match.
Mottley described Sobers as “a man who if he had not achieved any of those great feats on the cricket field would have been immortalised by his community as a good man and a great man”.
Reverend Canon Guy Hewitt read out a message from King Charles during the service.
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“History is distinguished with sporting champions whose records have rightly commanded respect across generations,” the message read. “There have been far fewer however whose name along brings a smile to people’s faces across Barbados, the Caribbean and the Commonwealth.
“Sir Garfield Sobers belongs very firmly in the latter category. I send my deepest sympathies to Sir Garry’s family as they come to terms with this great loss.”
Sobers’ body lay in state at the Barbados parliament on Monday and at the Kensington Oval on Tuesday, with national dignitaries and members of the public able to pay their respects.
He will be laid to rest at Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens in the south of Barbados.
Malaysian-American flyweight Muay Thai standout Johan Ghazali is not looking for a technical chess match at The Inner Circle 24 on Friday, July 31. “Jojo” is looking for exactly the kind of fight Ramadan Ondash brings, and he has been here before.
Ghazali carries eight ONE Championship victories into Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok this Friday.
He has since navigated the pressures and setbacks that come with competing at the global level, including a unanimous decision loss to Shimon Yoshinari at ONE SAMURAI 1 in April.
He sees in Ondash a reflection of his own trajectory at an earlier stage, and that perspective shapes exactly how confident he is about the outcome.
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Get the latest updates on One Championship Rankings at Sportskeeda and more
The Rentap Muay Thai and Superbon Training Camp athlete told ONE Championship:
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“He knows this fight will be the biggest one yet for him. He has to get past me. I’m ready for a fighter of his style and his caliber. I love this type of brawl-style fight. This is always my bread and butter.”
He continued:
“I see Ramadan as a version of myself from two to three years ago in terms of an experience standpoint. I have the experience now, and I’m a little more mature than him heading into this fight.”
Johan Ghazali plans to keep Ramadan Ondash guessing
Johan Ghazali’s game plan extends beyond simply outlasting Ondash in a physical exchange.
The Malaysian-American is aware that a one-dimensional approach against a versatile, aggressive opponent gives away the element of surprise.
He intends to use every tool in his arsenal to stay unpredictable throughout.
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“I’m gonna do it in my favor in the ways that I’ve learned through experience from fighting good fighters. I’ll use all of my advantages to keep him guessing, and I don’t want to be reliant on just one thing,” “Jojo” told the promotion.
Fans can watch the flyweight clash live by purchasing The Inner Circle at live.onefc.com.
Bournemouth’s plans for the new season have been dealt a blow after forward Junior Kroupi was ruled out for around three months with a foot injury.
Kroupi, who has been chased by a number of clubs this summer, sustained the problem during the Cherries’ ongoing pre-season tour of Austria and underwent successful surgery on Wednesday after he returned to England.
The highly-rated French prospect is expected to be sidelined for three to four months, which will rule him out of the start of the club’s maiden Europa League campaign.
Bournemouth finished sixth last season to secure continental football for the first time after Kroupi struck 13 goals during an outstanding individual campaign.
A host of clubs around the world, including the Cherries’ Premier League rivals Tottenham and Arsenal, had placed the 20-year-old attacker high on their wish list, The Independentunderstands.
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However, Bournemouth’s stance had always been that Kroupi was not for sale this summer along with midfielder Alex Scott and Brazilian winger Rayan.
Even with this unexpected injury problem, the south-coast club remain determined to keep hold of Kroupi to boost new boss Marco Rose in his first campaign at Vitality Stadium.
David Benavidez put in one of the performances of the year when he dethroned unified cruiserweight world champion Gilberto Ramirez in May, and now ‘The Mexican Monster’ is set to face another world champion, with a November fight date being targeted.
Benavidez halted Ramirez in a dominant display upon his cruiserweight debut just two months ago, but despite prior intentions to return to light heavyweight during the aftermath, it has since become clear that Benavidez’s future is at 200lbs.
Still, an in-demand fight with Dmitry Bivol continues to be mentioned, but so does a potential cruiserweight match-up against Jai Opetaia, who has recently filed a lawsuit against the IBF after believing that the sanctioning body’s decision to strip him as champion was unfair.
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Avoiding those complications, Benavidez is instead targeting an alternate world title, with a November showdown against WBC cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian now nearing a deal, as per BoxingScene.
The report states that the 29-year-old’s promoter says the fight is a done deal on their end, and they know away Mikaelian’s signature. It will likely end up in Las Vegas, though other locations have not been ruled out.
Mikaelian is a two-time WBC champion, first winning the belt with a third round stoppage win over Ilunga Makabu in November 2023. He controversially lost his title to Badou Jack in May 2025, before regaining it in their rematch seven months later.
Pound-for-pound superstar Terence Crawford retired from the sport last December, but that has not stopped ‘Bud’ from getting involved in back-and-forth’s with active fighters.
Now, the Omaha-born sensation has warned one of his newfound rivals that he may be on the verge of being knocked out.
Crawford announced his decision to hang up the gloves last year, but the 38-year-old has continued to be linked to a number of lucrative opportunities, including a rematch with Canelo Alvarez and a showdown with newly-crowned two-division unified world champion, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
In response, Crawford took to social media to remind Garcia that he should keep his mind on the fight, advising him to stick to training or risked getting knocked out by the British challenger.
“Ryan Garcia, you might get knocked out – you better be training and taking this fight serious.”
Garcia-Benn takes place on Saturday, September 12, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. As for Crawford, there’s been no indication he’ll come out of retirement anytime soon.
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