Not sure how likely that is to happen, though.

What we're going to see is what we saw when the Womens World Cup first started. Lots of lopsided matches because you're bringing in clearly inferior teams to fill out the brackets. But as the years go on, the increased competition helps -- a rising tide lifts all boats sorta thing.

The most interesting thing to me will be how they split up the 16 extra slots. European teams were against this, so now they're going to argue for more slots than they perhaps deserve. That will defeat the main purpose of growing the game in Asia and Africa -- but SOME slots will have to go to Europe (and the Americas as well).

At a minimum, I think this highly increases the chances for the United States to host in 2026 (whether solo or in partnership with Mexico and/or Canada). This setup requires more sites and we have them already ready to rock and roll.