Marcotti’s 2026 wishes: A big World Cup (with Italy in it), transparency in football, more

Another year in the books, another chance to look forward and imagine what can be. The World Cup will dominate 2026 the way only the biggest sporting event in the world can, but there are plenty of other things to hope for.

These are my 30 wishes for football in the new year. And, of course, No. 30 is ever present — at least for me.

1. That the 2026 World Cup be safe and welcoming for all involved, from fans to players to officials. Let’s not lose sight of, ultimately, why we do this. (I’d add in «enjoyable too» but, hey, if your country disappoints, it’s going to suck.)

2. That we get a «clean» winner in 2026. To borrow a term from professional wrestling, I don’t want a final draped in controversy, like 1954 or 1966 or 2006 or 2010. Refereeing errors and skullduggery are, to some degree, part of this, but if that has to happen, let it be before the final.

3. That the World Cup be a catalyst for the sport’s growth and development in the region. It’s not just the old chestnut of becoming a mainstream sport in the United States — by some metrics it already is — or helping MLS (or, indeed, the USL’s fledgling first-division project) achieve sporting legitimacy. It’s also about Canada, where the Canadian Premier League continues to grow (slowly), and Mexico, where Liga MX will be bringing back promotion and relegation after a five-year hiatus.

4. That we get to see VAR used for corner kicks and second yellow cards at the World Cup. A decision is expected by the spring and I understand all the concerns about delays and re-refereeing. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for all football, but the World Cup is too important not to use the tools available to us.

5. That Italy qualify for the World Cup. Sorry if you’re from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wales or Northern Ireland and understandably disagree, but I’m Italian and these are my wishes. We sat out the past two and that’s two too many. I’m tired of cracking the same stupid joke about how only Brazil have won more than we have and therefore we wanted to give someone else a chance. It’s already embarrassing. Time for some redemption.

6. That we understand that the inequality at the top of the club game isn’t normal — and maybe start doing something about it. All the financial rules seem to be about sustainability, not competitive balance, so maybe I’m in the minority here. But for the past 10, 15 years, we’ve seen things that just aren’t normal (as defined by the game’s previous 100 years). Like the biggest, wealthiest teams playing like crap and still winning, simply because their budgets are five, 10 or 20 times that of the competition. Too many born on third base thinking they hit a triple. It’s tiresome and it’s not what the game is about.

7. That Gianni Infantino not run for FIFA president again in 2027. He’s still very popular with his voters, he has overseen massive financial growth, he has — despite what his opponents say — generally purged a lot of the rampant corruption that marked FIFA prior to 2016 and, yes, the FIFA Council ruled that his first period in office doesn’t count toward the three-term limit so technically he can run again. But he shouldn’t. That limit of three four-year terms (ironically written into the rules by him before he became president, when he was co-chairperson of the FIFA reform committee) is there for a reason. You’ve made your mark, now go do something else.

8. That more leagues adopt VAR Light (or Football Video Support, as FIFA calls it) because full-blown VAR isn’t for everyone. The fact of the matter is no more than 20 (at a stretch) leagues in the world can justify the full-on version. The stripped-down version — which we saw at the Under-20 World Cup, among others — is far cheaper and easier to understand. And the «challenge» system puts the onus on the teams, rather than the video assistant referee, which is another bonus.

9. That the women’s game be allowed to follow its own development path, without needing to ape the men’s game, which has more than a 100-year head start. Some go even further and argue that it should have its own governing body. But the dynamics involved in the twin goals of making women’s football a viable, self-sustaining professional sport while at the same time expanding the base and making the game available to more women around the world, are hard enough as it is without forcing it into a blueprint designed for the men’s game. Or needing to rely on the men, especially in Europe, for financial viability.

10. That sovereign wealth funds stay out football. OK, you can grandfather in the ones behind the City Football Group, Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United, but no more should be allowed. A sovereign wealth fund’s job is to preserve and grow the accumulated cash of a country in the interest of that country’s citizens. Owning a football club — not a liquid asset, in most cases a loss-making asset and one where success isn’t measured just by profit and loss — doesn’t mesh with that. Especially not one halfway around the world.

11. That multi-club ownership (MCO) goes away. It’s not just the convoluted rules (which get even more complicated after the Lyon/Crystal Palace/John Textor fiasco last year) or the conflict of interest (requiring all sorts of fair-market value assessments that inevitably get disputed) or the fact that if you’re not the main club in a multi-club structure, you really get treated poorly. It’s the fact that in the vast majority of cases, MCOs, which sound clever on paper, don’t deliver for their owners.

12. That Roman Abramovich and the British government resolve what to do with the billions in the Chelsea sale. It’s absurd that more than three years after the fact, some $2.5 billion from the sale of Chelsea is still sitting in a bank account because they can’t agree on how the victims of the war in Ukraine (or, likely, which victims) ought to be compensated. While the money sits, Ukrainians suffer.

13. That the Manchester City case with the 115 charges of false accounting, noncooperation and breaches of profit and sustainability rules be resolved in a way that folks actually understand. No, I’m not holding my breath here, considering the hearing actually began in September 2024 (and the investigation years earlier), but we can only hope. One indication of how long this has been going on is that the charges are actually more than 130, but we’ve been going so long, the term «115 charges» has stuck.

14. That the Premier League learns from this debacle to make itself more transparent and accessible. And by «Premier League,» I mean the 20 clubs, because ultimately it’s their decision. The obfuscation and lack of transparency helps nobody and only fuels more confusion and deliberation. Treating rules and disciplinary matters as if they were Cold War secrets ignores the fact that this isn’t a normal business and fans have a right not just to know, but to understand.

15. That more players understand that collective bargaining via their unions — at national level and via FIFPro in terms of FIFA — is the best, most efficient way to look out for their interests. And maybe owners, too, while we’re at it. It can’t be a coincidence that the most profitable leagues in the world — U.S. sports leagues — all have collective bargaining, can it?

16. That A22 and whatever Super League zombies are still out there realize they’re not going to win this battle with a mere succession of lawsuits in Spanish commercial courts. They’re likely not going to win anyway and simply continue to get laughed at, but if they want to have a prayer, they need to win hearts and minds of fans (and not just Real Madrid fans) and present an actual project with actual figures that actually work. Not the nonsense they came up with last year.

17. That there be more transparency in who does transfers and who gets paid how much and for what. Some folks still operate under the delusion that if a club want to sign a player from another club, they simply call them up directly and negotiate a fee. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be armies of intermediaries popping up in just about every deal. Some of them provide a valuable and necessary service. Some do not. But because we often have no idea who is involved and in what capacity, there’s no accountability either. And that’s not good for football.

18. That if 2026 is to be the last dance for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup, they go out on a high. No, I don’t necessarily mean face off in the final — although that would be pretty cool. Just go out with credible performances, like the sort they’ve provided with their club teams, Inter Miami CF and Al Nassr. Bearing in mind that until the knockouts, the level of opposition they face will probably be on a par (if not lower) than what they face with their club teams.

19. That Xabi Alonso be given a chance to do what he was hired for at Real Madrid. And that means implementing his system and moving away from the superstar-led player management approach of predecessors like Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti. It worked for them, but he’s not them and it’s not what he did at Bayer Leverkusen, which is how he got the Madrid gig in the first place. If it means making painful, unpopular decisions, so be it. Otherwise, you can’t help but wonder why they hired him.

20. That Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez lays out some sort of succession plan, so the club doesn’t descend into chaos if and when he steps down. I know, he has shown no desire to step down, but the fact of the matter is that he turns 79 in March and the next set of elections aren’t until 2029. His standing in club history may be unparalleled (maybe even more than Santiago Bernabéu, the man for whom they named the stadium), but you have to be realistic. Great leaders plan for what will follow them.

21. That Barcelona‘s sports scientists know what they’re doing when it comes to Lamine Yamal‘s body. He’s not even 18½ years old and has already played nearly 150 senior games for club and country. That’s around five times as many as Messi and Ronaldo played at the same age, and they turned out to be pretty good. Burnout — physical and mental — is a thing.

22. That if Manchester United decide to keep Ruben Amorim beyond this year, they don’t automatically extend his contract. That knee-jerk rule many clubs have, whereby they feel they need to give coaches multi-year deals otherwise their authority is «undermined,» is nonsense. You give Amorim a new deal if he has convinced you with results and performances that he’s making your club better. If you don’t think that’s the case, you fire him and get somebody else. If you’re on the fence about him, let him stick around and earn his extension. But if you need a long-term deal to assert your authority after more than a year at the club, you’re not fit for the job.

23. That Arne Slot figures out how to make his pieces fit together at Liverpool. Because, right now, it looks as if it’s a «Panini sticker» approach to recruitment and he’s trying to assemble a puzzle via trial and error. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that this is the same group that won the Premier League so convincingly a year ago.

24. That Rodri returns to Manchester City and plays at the level he did before his injury. Players get hurt, it’s part of the game and, yes, if you’re going to get hurt and effectively sit out a year then at least he got to win a truckload of silverware for club and country (plus the Ballon d’Or) before it happened. But it’s sad to see him sidelined, and City’s struggles in midfield show just how much he’s missed.

25. That if Vinícius Júnior can’t smile regularly for Real Madrid, he gets to do it with Brazil. There’s no getting around it, it’s been a bumpy ride for him at the Bernabéu. Some of it is on him, some of it on the system, some of it on bad luck. It’s hard to have contract talks at a standstill shortly after everybody was telling you that you had won the Ballon d’Or. So being with Brazil and reunited with Ancelotti could be the perfect tonic, and it would be nice to see him flash that perfect smile once again.

26. That more people heed Harry Kane‘s lesson. It’s not just that you don’t need to be an obsessive or selfish person to be one of the greatest goal scorers of your generation. It’s also the fact that you can grow and develop even if folks don’t see the talent in you at a young age. Until he was 21, Kane was playing sparingly for Tottenham Hotspur and going on loan to Championship clubs. That is most definitely not what his current peers in the goal-scoring department — Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland — were doing at that age. Sometimes, if you persevere, others will come to see what you can do.

27. That Luka Modric continues to defy Father Time, whether at AC Milan or somewhere else. Playing at age 40 in central midfield is a totally different animal than doing so at center back or center forward, yet somehow Modric still manages to shine, and he’s playing a big role in Milan’s push for the Scudetto. It is totally up to him what he wants to do, of course, but I’d love it if he keeps playing. And, maybe, if Milan don’t keep him past June when his one-year deal is up, he moves on somewhere else. Maybe the Bundesliga, maybe Ligue 1, maybe Dinamo Zagreb, where it all began. I just feel more people should get the thrill of seeing him in the flesh.

28. Now that San Siro has been sold, that we move forward without delay. I’ll come clean. I didn’t want to see one of the most iconic grounds in the world game be sold with the intention of being torn down and replaced by a new ground. But now that the deed is done, now that Inter Milan and the Rossoneri have ponied up the money to buy it from the city of Milan, can we get on with things? No more lawsuits, appeals and other bureaucratic nonsense. Sometimes, it’s best to rip off the Band-Aid.

29. That José Mourinho goes on a run in the Champions League. It’s by no means certain that he’ll get Benfica into the knockout rounds, with two games left, but I’m rooting for him. Mourinho in a two-legged European knockout format is pure box office — for better or worse.

30. That kids who fall in love with the sport be given the chance first and foremost to support their local club before jumping on the big juggernaut club bandwagon simply because it’s pumped into their televisions.