{"id":328338,"date":"2025-12-06T03:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/328338\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T03:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:11:07","slug":"2026-world-cup-draw-canadas-jesse-marsch-eager-for-outstanding-home-italy-fixture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/328338\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Cup draw: Canada’s Jesse Marsch eager for ‘outstanding’ home Italy fixture"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jesse Marsch has said he wants Italy<\/a> to come through their UEFA playoff to face Canada<\/a> at the World Cup, but told Wales<\/a> coach Craig Bellamy that he is ready to renew their rivalry if the Red Dragons claim the final spot in Group B.<\/p>\n

Co-hosts Canada were paired with Switzerland<\/a>, Qatar<\/a> and the winner of the Italy\/ Wales\/Northern Ireland\/Bosnia & Herzegovina UEFA playoff, which will be played next March.<\/p>\n

Former Leeds United<\/a> coach Marsch said he wants his team to launch their World Cup campaign with a box office clash against the Azzurri due to the huge Italian population in Canada.<\/p>\n

But after clashing with Bellamy in September, when the Wales boss criticised Canada’s celebrations after a 1-0 friendly win in Swansea and said “I hope I see you again at the World Cup,” Marsch said he is ready to face the Welsh if they get through the playoffs.<\/p>\n

“Look, Bellamy said he wanted to play us and Wales is in there,” Marsch told reporters.<\/p>\n

“Bosnia is a really good team, Northern Ireland are in there — it’s a really competitive group and I think people will be expecting Italy to come out of it, but it’s not going to be easy for Italy.<\/p>\n

“But I think that playing Italy would be outstanding. Our first game at home — I know there would be a lot of Italian-Canadians at the match and they had better root for Canada, that’s all I’m saying.<\/p>\n

“I live in Italy and I think Italy is a really good team. [Gennaro] Gattuso has come in and done a good job, made them very competitive in their last matches and that would be a big challenge for us and incredible moment for us in a home World Cup to have Canada against Italy.<\/p>\n

“The second pot, all those [playoff] opponents could be a big challenge, but I didn’t want another European team because I didn’t want to wait to know, but too bad, I will have to be patient.<\/p>\n

“It’s not easy and a little bit weird not knowing who your third opponent is, but in general we are excited about the group.”<\/p>\n

Marsch said that the biggest boost for Canada was avoiding the threat of playing Norway, the most dangerous team in Pot Three.<\/p>\n

– 2026 World Cup draw: As it happened<\/a>
– WC set for Messi’s Argentina vs. Ronaldo’s Portugal quarterfinal<\/a>
– Why England will (and won’t) win the 2026 World Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

“I didn’t want Norway and the fact we didn’t get Norway in the third pot made me happy,” Marsch said.<\/p>\n

“But we are confident in our team and whoever we were gonna draw, we are confident of being able to beat those teams.<\/p>\n

“Switzerland is a very talented team, good in every position and a very complete team. They are coached really well, so a big challenge, but we can compete with them.<\/p>\n

“We will have to do all of our preparation, get our team healthy and in good fitness and that way we’ll be at our best.<\/p>\n

“I don’t like it [not knowing third opponent], I don’t love it, but it’s a bigger disadvantage for that team.<\/p>\n

“We will spend our time in the next few months focusing on Switzerland and Qatar and that will give us time to see what comes out of the playoffs.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jesse Marsch has said he wants Italy to come through their UEFA playoff to face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-328338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}