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Shafaq News<\/p>\n
The first week of World Cup
\n2026 has produced an unusual trend: in three matches against European
\nopposition, Asian teams collected seven points from a possible nine, with South
\nKorea coming from behind to beat Czechia 2-1, Qatar earning a late 1-1 draw against
\nSwitzerland, and Australia defeating Turkiye 2-0.<\/p>\n
South Korea overturned a
\ndeficit through Hwang In-beom and Oh Hyeon-gyu, while Qatar spent much of the
\nmatch under pressure before finding a late equalizer for the first World Cup
\npoint in the country’s history. Australia absorbed long spells of Turkish possession
\nand still left Vancouver with a two-goal victory.<\/p>\n
Taken individually, none of
\nthe results would be enough to define a tournament, but together they arrive at
\na moment when Asian football is represented more strongly than ever. Nine Asian
\nnations qualified for World Cup 2026, the highest total in the competition’s
\nhistory, while Jordan and Uzbekistan are making their tournament debuts. Before
\nthe tournament, AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa described
\n2026 as Asia’s strongest-ever World Cup representation, while FIFA President
\nGianni Infantino called the expanded format a \u201cgame changer for Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The early pattern has not been
\nlimited to Asia, with Morocco, Africa\u2019s 2022 semifinalists, holding Brazil 1-1
\nafter Ismael Saibari scored first and Vinicius Junior rescued a point for the
\nfive-time champions. North America also started strongly, with Mexico beating
\nSouth Africa 2-0 in the opener, the United States defeating Paraguay 4-1, and
\nCanada drawing 1-1 with Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n
The timing is notable for
\nIraq, who return to the World Cup for the first time since 1986 and open
\nagainst Norway on Wednesday in a group that also includes France and Senegal.
\nElsewhere, Jordan are preparing for their World Cup debut against Austria, Japan
\nface the Netherlands, while Saudi Arabia still have Uruguay and Spain ahead.<\/p>\n
None of those matches become
\neasier because of what happened during the opening days or in 2022 \u2013Norway
\nstill have Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard, Spain remain among the favorites
\nfor the title, and the Netherlands have reached three World Cup finals. Iraq
\nassistant coach Ren\u00e9 Meulensteen has described the assignment as a
\n\u201cDavid-vs-Goliath task.\u201d But what has changed is the backdrop.<\/p>\n
For decades, World Cup
\ndiscussions around teams outside Europe and South America often centered on
\nparticipation, respectable defeats, and the possibility of an upset, but the
\nearly matches of 2026 have instead centered on points, results, and missed opportunities
\nto take even more.<\/p>\n
The tournament is still young,
\nand a handful of matches will not settle any debate about the balance of power
\nin world football. But the opening days have already produced a question that
\nwill follow the competition through the group stage: are these isolated
\nresults, or another sign that the gap between football’s traditional powers and
\nthe rest of the field is becoming harder to see?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026-06-14T17:00:27+00:00 font Enable Reading Mode A- A A+ Shafaq News The first week of World Cup 2026 has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[122488,16993,4,450,451,3,304160,452,453],"class_list":["post-703976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-breaking","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-outsiders-challenge-world-cups-old-guard","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}