By next Tuesday, all 48 spots in the 2026 World Cup \u2013 the largest edition in tournament history \u2013 will be filled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Until then, there’s a lot of important soccer happening around the world \u2013 including a full slate of games on Thursday to see who’ll be advancing in World Cup qualifying. \u00a0We’re recapping all the day’s action.<\/p>\n
Reald Madrid’s Arda G\u00fcler set up Ferdi Kadioglu’s goal as T\u00fcrkiye took another step toward advancing to the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrkiye now awaits the winner of Slovakia vs. Kosovo. That game will be played next Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The winner will join the USA, Paraguay and Australia in Group D. Those matches will be played in Vancouver (vs. Australia), Santa Clara, Calif. (vs. Paraguay) and Los Angeles (vs. the USA).<\/p>\n
Among the other games to keep tabs on Thursday will be Italy vs. Northern Ireland in Bergamo. It’s inexplicable that a country with such a rich soccer heritage and which has won four<\/i> World Cup titles has not reached soccer’s biggest stage since 2014. Surely Italy won’t miss yet another tournament, right?<\/p>\n
If the Azzurri<\/i> are going to join the 48-team field this summer, they’re going to have to win two games over the course of the week. Win that game and then Italy will face Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina for a spot in the bracket.<\/p>\n
The winner of the Congo vs. New Caledonia\/Jamaica match will join Portugal, Uzbekistan and Colombia in Group K. Matches will be played in Houston (vs. Portugal), Guadalajara (vs. Colombia) and Atlanta (vs. Uzbekistan.)<\/p>\n
The winner of the Iraq vs. Bolivia\/Suriname match will join France, Senegal and Norway in Group I. Those matches will be played in Foxborough, Mass. (vs. Norway), Philadelphia (vs. France) and Toronto (vs. Senegal).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY By next Tuesday, all 48 spots in the 2026 World Cup \u2013 the largest edition in tournament history \u2013 will be filled.\u00a0 Until then, there’s a lot of important soccer happening around the world \u2013 including a full slate of games on Thursday to see who’ll be advancing in World Cup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}