I Need To Talk About This 

Football will go back to England before Zealand has a background change

Security budget money probably ended up in someone's pocket...

Don't understand why people have just equated one event to 'country is unable to host major events'. It's happened at Wembley, and Stade de France in recent times. No calls for them to stop hosting events. The key factor is learning from them and taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

To say nothing of the fact that there will be 100k+ mostly drunk people in multiple college football stadiums this fall and nothing like this will happen.

Did Troll Football and European Lad get concerned when Qatar used slave labor for those stadiums? Or did they think that's the way to do it to assure game day is flawless....

In the Netherlands, teams actually do get banned from bringing fans for a few matches if their fans act particularly idiotic if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if that's a standard thing around the world.

POP OFF RAAHHHH 🦅

Being very honest I think a huge amount of Naivety played it's part in these events and chances are decision makers weren't plugged in to how huge Argentina playing Columbia in Miami was likely to be. I imagine even Conmebol underestimated the demand from this diaspora, and for all team sports played in the US it is not Messi, it is not international where sometimes twisted patriotism takes hold. For those fans this was a once in a lifetime event on their doorstep and something like this will happen when tickets are scarce or unaffordable, for the Wembley Incident Corporate hospitality tickets were a quite a big proportion of that event as we were coming out of Lockdowns and England made that final. Police and Stewards were rusty and missed the desperation of people to be part of that evening. I wonder if Conmebol were guilty of not anticipating this or leaving it so late the local police couldn't shift resources. Either way the FIFA Worldcup Final is huge regardless of who makes the final and I would guess FIFA, the Stadium, New Jersey and local police already know what resources that want in place.

"i hate usa" bias in full effect.

So after the dust has settled. Having witnessed 3 major tournaments this season. Afcon was clearly the best tournament on all fronts.

Numbsculls online blaming "Americans, the USSF, and the US" for a poor tournament are morons. The US literally hosted one of the most highly rated World Cups in 94'. COMNEBOL caused EVERY Issue at the tournament the ticket prices, security, pitch quality, but the US gets blamed. Literally early this past season in SA-WC Qualifer was a bloody brawl in Rio when Argentina faced Brazil. COMNEBOL has a record of shithousery in their tournaments.

It kinda got to me too.. but you explained it perfectly.. a football culture craving for relevance gets shit on for something we actually do well (hosting amazing events).

i mean, we do suck, but people are forgetting this was FLORIDA

You’ve titled every video some version of this title for the last two months

Zealand fell off again, this time no podcast plug for the podcast with Julian Gressel

Many forgetting Miami literally held F1 at hard rock stadium no more than 8 weeks before this. But whatever it takes to stick it to the USA.

The criticism the US does deserve for this tournament is for the pitch conditions. Nearly every team complained about almost every pitch, and it was visibly terrible watching on TV. A lot more effort needs to be put into installing high quality pitches for 2026 and not second-hand, last-minute afterthoughts.

The US has about 140 stadiums that host 40,000 people or more (FIFA/UEFA’s requirement for big matches). Almost *250* 20,000 seaters and constantly building more. England has 13. Germany has 16. France has 7. We absolutely do major events routinely here.

My biggest complaint about the US hosting events (as an American) is our outrageous ticket prices. Obviously at some level at fault due to our large population, but we love those high sports prices

Crazy how people think the country with multiple stadiums with capacities that make the Bernabèu look like the Etihad suddenly think they can't host major events.

All I know is that the US hosts pretty big Football friendlies on a regular basis that somehow don't turn into chaos. That's not the same as a Copa America or a World Cup, but still they are large well organized Football events in the USA. Last year's AC Milan Vs Real Madrid match at the Rose Bowl had a crowd of over 70K fans and a nice looking pitch to play on. It's not like America is totally new to the sport and if you throw enough money at it, you can solve any logistics issues in America.

Really just seems like everyone is pointing blame at each other. But you can’t blame people for going after the hosts. When the 2022 champions league final debacle in Paris happened, people rightfully blamed the French police for not handling the situation. Same should go for American police. Think UEFA even has Paris banned from hosting important games. The previous times they hosted didn’t really matter. Plus, CONMEBOL can point to the countless times they had tournaments that went smoothly. On top of that, it also hasn’t been a good week at all for American security in general Of course the US can host a World Cup, but when issues pop up in a previous tournament and nothing is done to prevent it from happening again, it’s asking for something bad to happen

It’s so funny to me, like what do these people think these stadiums are used for outside of their soccer tournaments? They legit do not understand how many events we hold WEEKLY

This all feels like a big pile of recency bias

I really am growing tired of football fans hating on America. The idea that any country isn't a "football country" is gatekeeping in the extreme and needs to stop.

England fans complaining about a little bit a breaking and entering into a stadium as if they didn’t spend a century with constantly collapsing stadiums and 50-100 casualties PER GAME at Anfield

I actualy got into a miami heat game without a ticket, just walked very slowly by the ticket guy 😂

I don't understand why CONMEBOL did not just employ the respective security operators to do their stuff they do for all the other sports games that are hosted at those venues? They know what to do, just let them do it and it's fine. Or were they being cheap?

It’s just US bashing, plain and simple… unfortunately.

Yeah, because when I think of law and order, South America comes to mind.....said no one ever!

There are articles showing that Conmebol sold more tickets than the capacity of the stadium, so is understandable the reaction from the fans that with a valid ticket they were not allowed to come in

This sounds like you’re passing the buck. The US Federation and CONMEBOL should have worked together on security and fan security. This doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to host it or you’re not fit enough to but this doesn’t help the US football reputation and the US’s image on public and fan security. Maybe the taxpayer should have paid for security? Also - on the whole ‘it’s easy to shit on the USA’ - well welcome to my world as an England Fan. Everyone hates us. I love everyone else. My family’s heritage is Irish, my girlfriend is British Syrian but I’ll still get abuse online and in person for being an ‘English bigot’ and stereotype us as posh tea drinkers or Stella drinking hooligans. My country has problems and I know that but we don’t deserve the hate speech, shitty memes and abuse whenever we lose a match from the rest of the world when true England fans like me just want to support my team win or lose like anyone else in this world. The 2028 euros in the U.K. - and I’m excited. I hope it will be amazing and I hope it lives up to the hype - like I hope the same with USA World Cup in two years. But Zealand - don’t treat others (like England) with disrespect like you did in your two England videos and then be a hypocrite and turn the USA into victims whenever they’re blamed. Maybe be nicer to others and others will treat you the same way…

The only thing that is actually concerning is the quality and state of the pitch, you could see the ball woble a lot and almost every player talked about the bad quality of the field/pitch

Loves Trolls Football especially when they post racist and war jokes when there's a chance. I want to know who's behind the account.

South American and chaos are unseparated lol this is normal for those people

Euro 2020 final was a stadium invasion, also the champions league final where Liverpool fans went mad as well

Zealand you’re right but there’s a giant purple elephant in the room and that is ticket prices, if you try to charge people over 200$ for a football ticket then it’s not going to work

The pitches were still shite

There’s literally a Netflix documentary about England fans doing the same at Wembley in the last Euros.

Funniest part of all their rage is that, as reluctant as the anti-American community hate to admit it, the US is arguably the most well equipped nation to handle major tournaments like this.

I usually like your takes and I also basically agree with your position here - but you're ignoring one, crucial fact for me here. US *allowed* CONMEBOL to do whatever it pleases on your soil in regards to organising this torunament, and given the track record of this organisation you should probably drive a little more of a hard bargaing when negotiating with them the specifics of how to tackle things like security. It isn't a shock that this happened during Copa America but it is kind of a shock that it happened in the US, a country that in two years will organise the biggest sporting event in the world. If it all ultimately happens in United States then its VERY natural that the United States will be blamed if something goes wrong. US should have given an ultimatum about the specifics regarding organising this Copa America and if CONMEBOL wouldn't agree, then let them organise it elsewhere. Giving them free reign is kind of mental when you know they had countless problems in the past. Fans from around the world have the right to be worried when they see videos of people climbing into the ventilation system of the stadium with no security in sight to watch a match. From what I gathered it all didn't end up in any causalties - thank god - but what if it did? What if someone was trampled or even stuck in this ventilation system and got seriously injured or worse? Would it also not stain US's reputation in your eyes because it wasn't technically in charge of security? Agreeing to host a torunament means you accept certain responsibilities.

Went to the Columbia v Panama game and it was fine, I mean there was a little scuffle lol but the crowd really kept everyone in check hope to attend a wc game in 2026

Crazy how quicky people forget the 2021 Euros final. That was a mess. Guess wembley should host things anymore.

When you have an outsider organizing events at your home, you should have a certain standard, a certain plan for what that organizer must respect and you should reject their organizing if they fail to present a plan that you're happy with, especially given COMNEBOL's reputation and professionalism.

did CONMEBOL train the assigned police force as well? glossing over the cops just because america regularly partakes in sportsball is kinda odd ngl. like yeah CONMEBOL are piss poor at organising their own shit but the cops are just as much to blame. Also, if CONMEBOL and the USSF dont get along, WHY IS THE USSF HOSTING THIS? oh right, $$$. Love you Z, but nobody punches down on the good ol' USA for "internet points"

I think a lot of the hate comes from 500$ prices for a random Copa America match ticket. It's logical that it's hard to call this Copa America great when every single fan is being ripped off by the infamous corporate American greed.

I’m English and love basketball and American football. If you love a sport you love a sport

no one has ever wanted to see a Dolphins game that bad. People were going Shawshank Redemption/Die Hard crawling thru the ventilation system. CONMEBOL is a joke organization

I agree with a lot of the sentiment but I do wonder if the USA, as a country not the soccer federation, should have stepped in knowing it was chaos.

This is jist what south america and CONMEBOL do. There is incredibly bad fan violence in south america and FIFA had to take the Copa Liberiatordes final away from Argentina and move it to Madrid to ensure saftey for the players. The US hosts events bigger than this every week from August - February. To say we cant handle the WC is dumb. We have never had fan crushes, mass break in like this, large crowd fights like this before. We pack 100k+ drunk fans into stadium and nothing bad happens. Maybe its becuase we are just a bit more civilized and understand how to act at major events

The fact that they didn't have separate gates for each side as is normal in Europe was kinda wild.

My main issue with the US holding the tournament is they do not have a great football culture and are too large a country to create a great atmosphere throughout the tournament (not to mention it is split with them and 2 other large countries). After being in Germany, I cant get away from how ideal a place that was to hold a tournament with the right footballing culture and size to hold a tournament, not to mention no bribes made either (cough cough Qatar)

2:00 the thing you said about banning a team to host matches because of crowd, fans/ultras/hooligans problems does actually happen in Europe. The way it does is, depends od the competition, UEFA and/or local national football associations fine clubs or national teams with cash and playing one or more next matches behind closed doors or/and on neutral ground. Sometimes, but rarely, matches get suspended and points given to the team playing against the team whose fans did some rioting, breaking, burning, invading the pitch etc. But I got your point, I don't see a reason to cancel the world cup or some stupid thing like that. Great channel btw., respect!

Quoting CONMEBOL: "As is known, in the final played in Miami, fans without tickets went to the vicinity of the stadium, which delayed the normal access of the people who did have them, which slowed down entry and led to the closure of doors. Given this situation, CONMEBOL was subject to the decisions made by the Hard Rock Stadium authorities, in accordance with the contractual responsibilities established for the security operation. In addition to the provisions determined in said contract, CONMEBOL recommended to said authorities the procedures tested in events of this magnitude, which were NOT taken into account."

world cup in 94 was a great world cup

bro actually responding to troll twitter accounts

England and the UK like the US are pretty much disliked worldwide too. The US can easily run a decent world cup tournament, obviously. Dude! But, isn't there a problem with the number of full size pitches in USA? It was mentioned during Copa .

all those US events are mainly national or local, whilst a world cup is mainly international. it introduces an element of randomness that has to be factores in, like the other night

The biggest disgrace of this tournament is the utter cash grab this tournament/lack of control that has soured the tournament since the start.

Maybe focus on the fact that the grass was really bad and the weird half-time show which has no use in a footballmatch? The main reason why most europeans dont want the USA to host the world cup is because it will be too flashy with weird things like a half-time show. The USA tried to introduce bigger goals and breaks after every quarter to appease advertisers the last time you guys hosted a world cup, and FIFA being greedy will eventually cave to all the money which will then result in changes in matchformats nobody wanted in the first place. That is the real reason why the rest of the world doesn’t want the WC to be held in de USA

How many American cities actually meet FIFA requirements for public transport networks?

The fields still need to be majorly overhauled though. It’s not that hard to make the playing surface safe. It just takes time and money, which these NFL owners have plenty of, but they refuse to invest in it.

Why was this tournament played on u14 sized pitches? We have standard pitch sizes for a reason

Don't feed the trolls. European Lad in particular is rage baiting because he just got cheated on and he's emotional 🤣

Zealand makes a very good point, the US has a track record of organising safe national and international sporting events (I can't comment on music and political events to be honest) - however it is plainly clear that CONEBOL can't organise a damn thing. Furthermore its also plainly clear that latin america (specifically south america) cannot organise safe events - we have seen many examples that local rivals in South America regularly need riot police, specific special security measures etc - it reminds me of England football hooliganism in the 80s. Don't blame the US - blame the fans that cause issues, blame the organisation structure (or lack thereof) - mark my words - watch the World Cup go off without any issues

I dunno - considering it's the South American fans that have continuously brought this tournament into the spotlight in a negative way, maybe they should take the blame for all of this?

I understand your point Z, but for the Qatari world cup you were every other game mentioning the location of the world cup and the problems of the qatari government and we did a fundraiser for Amnesty International to balance the issues, but where was this energy for this tournament in the US or the world cup? And to say no one wanted to host the WC is very disingenuous when Uruguay and Saudi Arabia were begging to host the tournament and many other countries

If anything this will only ensure that the world cup will be organized to the max as the US won't want the bad reputation as well as the saftey issues that could arise. I only see security and protocal being doubled down. Like after the Wembley problems the next games played there had max security and a no nonsense approach to any misbehaviour.

Lets not forget the Dutch vs English hooligan fight in the Eurocup... This problem of Copa America (and Champion League Final in 2022 in Paris) won´t happen in FIFA World Cup. Because the World Cup establishes an EXCLUSION zone of almost 1km around the stadiums. Which FIFA controls. Fans can´t enter that HUGE exclusion zone without tickets. So there is no agglomeration around the stadium. At the same time it works, it's the source of many countries when signing for the FIFA World Cup. Because FIFA basically becomes like kings of parts of major cities. Pros and cons, right? The way to avoid the Copa America final problem would be to establish an exclusion zone ruled over by CONMEBOL together with Miami... that wouldn´t happen.

“Yeah, we could hardly STAND to hear about a tournament being held in the USA! Why can’t they be organized and uncontroversial like, say, Russia? Or Qatar? Saudi Arabia, maybe?” Ffs…

Dont blame you man, cold hard lies to ones face should bother everyone, no just you. .

If you think security checkpoints at US stadiums are insane, try going to a cricket match in India. Had to go through five different security checks just to get into the stadium

I don’t think they should ban the US from hosting, they have the money we need to compete with UEFA, and everyone should be welcome in football. I think is a summ of having 5 Copa Americas in 8 years, 2 of them not even in South America for the first time ever (why cant the US travel south) and the fact that this was the worst Copa America in my lifetime, considering that Brazil hosted one with 2 weeks notice and the Centenario one was pretty decent in the same country makes incredible how bad it was. I know CONMEBOL is super bad and corrupt, the poor refereeing, bad scheduling, absurd sanctions and even choosing the US is all on them, but like Bielsa said, the infraestructure was embarrassing even for South American countries standards, im not talking about the venues, of course they are world class, but the pitches you could see from the TV that they were soooo bad, they weren’t even the right size. It all looked very rushed. Also some changes to please the US market was REALLY disliked by the fans, a Halftime show on a football match? It’s all CONMEBOL but you can tell why people see that it is a change made FOR the US and it feels really insulting in the oldest international football tournament. The US (or CONCACAF) integration into CONMEBOL feels so forced and rushed, and we South Americans are really distrusting of foreing powers, specially the US (of course this translates into football) they should really try to take a step back and make it a little more natural. PS: Initially i got angry that you got angry because my own country hosted a Copa America and other sports events that were beautiful with no incidents, no where nearly the same budget and reasonable ticket prices, but you made good points and it’s not worth to discuss who is at fault. I hope we can all learn from this and improve football.

Not sure where gun ownership comes into it, but the rest makes sense.

Zealand having a meltdown over international tournaments is still my favourite RU-vid Genre.

As a latin, I can confirm that CONMEBOL absolutely sucks. It's responsibility is undeniable and I really hope WC 2026 plays out differently

Someone explain to me how "not a football country" is equivalent to "cannot host a worldwide event"?

C’mon Zealand the reason Ajax tore down their stadium was the great SANTIAGO GIMÉNEZ 🇲🇽

Being rattled sometimes is completely normal. Those comments rattled you because you love America in spite of all of our problems. You realize this country has many things wrong with it and many stupid people, but you also realize that this is your home. You were born here, you were raised here, and even now as an adult you travel the world yet you always come back home to the US and you feel some sort of pride in this country deep down in spite of all the issues we face. It also feels disingenuous as a lot of the people who have been criticizing the US in this scenario either 1. Are not from this country and have never been and are not knowledgeable about what they are demeaning or 2. Immigrants who have moved here for a better life that this country is able to provide for them. This is no knock on immigrants or others outside of the country, but just as you took the precaution to hesitate to speak of Turkish politics in your recent videos discussing their whole situation, it is annoying to see others not take that same precaution and just denounce the US because it games them Internet points. At the end of the day, even with all of the many problems you face and everyday Americans realize things need to get better, many of us also realize that there are not many places on this planet that people would rather live. TLDR: Cane’s Box Combo sub slaw for extra toast

Ajax is a club and not hosting a international tournament

I love you

big misconceptions i feel is that most or some of this is to ‘score internet points’ as you put it, and yeah in a football context the us is an easy punching bag - but this was mostly a display of pure genuine hate to somewhere which is (at least feels like to them, if not you) damaging peoples love for the sport through increasing commercialisation - massive ticket prices, trying to get premier league games played stateside, and also just taking away the game they love by hosting copa america (a tournament which they have no reason to be playing in anyway they have the gold cup, same applies to other concacaf teams) and hosting the world cup. I do completely agree that countries shouldn’t be barred from hosting just bc football isn’t their primary sport, but the united states must realise that this in combination with all else is not at all a good look - and it frankly looks like a further way of extracting money from football fans rather than an attempt to grow the game there. particularly when such simple fixes to grow the game more fundamentally there like removing pay to play and fixing the god awful league system in mls (hope any americans who actually read this appreciate me not saying ‘the’ mls) are changes which would improve the sport in the states so much more than hosting a world cup are light years away from being made, yet all the ways to ‘grow’ the game which they can profit off of are being used tenfold. and also bc i couldn’t find anywhere to put it, whilst yes they will be similar in metrics such as crowd numbers and things most major american sporting events aren’t even close to cross continental sporting events. i mean genuinely do you expect people to believe the tampa bay buccaneers and whomever else have a greater rivalry and more tension than nations from the balkans or latam? like that suggestion is genuinely laughable

Z, how much were the tickets for the Euro Games you attended? They probably where 5x cheaper than what they were here in Copa, (comparing QT finals game prices). CONMEBOL min maxed this Copa like crazy.

This was CONMEBOLs fault. Hard rock has hosted super bowls and F1 events that had much bigger crowds but in this game they had to leave it to CONMEBOL. The stadiums are at fault for the pitches being horrible turf (which is supposed to be changed out for grass for the World Cup)

I'm my humble opinion USA is more than capable to host the World Cup in 2026, I think the main problem is CONMEBOL as an organization, theres allways trouble with Copa America does not matter where is played. My true fear is for the infrastructure beacuse I believe mini camps is in the same dates as the World Cup and I dont know how many training fields will be available and with more teams attending in 2026 I dont know how will it go, but at least there is time to work on it.

ROCK, FLAG AND EAGLE!!!

I am pretty sure one or both those accounts are run by Portuguese dudes

It takes minimal critical thinking to realise that this was CONMEBOL's fault and not the US.

This is sad to see people say that about the US. The US is the most capable country in the world to host any sporting event. Look at the attendance numbers for American Football alone.

One thing for sure south America will not host a world cup for a very loooong time and ill be surprised theyll allow a south American team to win for a long time too.

10:00 that sounds so wrong and really ridculous imho. I mean isnt the Saudis literally BEGGING to host the World Cup? Same for Brazil and the South American countries. The only ones not interested in bidding for the World is prolly Japan and the SEA countries (no China will NEVER get a world cup no chances) that is why there was a huge ass bid to literally get sympathy votes by including fkin Ukraine literally just a year ago. EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOM (except Japan and SEA) wants to host the World Cup dude. Literally South America was BEGGING for it but fell short because the Saudi "donated" millions to FIFA so what you are saying there is not only absurd but sounds... really stupid as well.

Europeans try not to complain about everyone else while ignoring their own similar problems challenge: impossible

Allways love ajaxites getting called out

Should the USA be hosting Copa America in the first place? On the one hand, I do not think it would be fair for conmebol to invite the USA and other concacaf teams to play in tournament semi-regularly whilst also banning them from ever having the opportunity to host. If the tournament as a whole benefits from the participation and attention brought by the participation of big North American teams, it would seem unfair to deny North American fans the chance to participate locally. On the other hand though, clearly Copa America as a whole is meant to focus on conmebol nations and I would be interested to understand what the average South American fan thinks of NA participation particularly if that means the tournament is sometimes hosted outside. To be clear, I don’t have a side in this, I am genuinely interested in what the people involved and affected think

Doesn’t happen in any other sport. It’s the fans from all these “countries”

Bro I tell you the same I said in the past video you made about Copa América, you are misinformed or clearly omitting information and I find that just disappointed, not even surprised anymore. Ofcourse fans are at fault but that happens in any major football event. But can you expect from a country that can’t even properly protect a former president and current presidential candidate.

Ex pat? You mean immigrants? Lol

Yeah, a lot of people from South/Central America that hate USA and have their reason, cof cof condor operation cof cof, but Conmebol is a awful institution. The south american football could be greater than it is today and much more profitable but conmebol, and other federations like CBF, is so corrupt that the football is dyiing here. PS.: About the hate, you and probably the majoraty of the USA population are good people, it's just a historical wound that probably will never heal and I don't want that this comment looks like an criticism, just pointing the reasons of why the hate exists.

America Raaaahhhh 🦅

To play devil’s advocate, why has this never happened in other Copa Americas when hosted outside of the US? I’ve followed the tournament for multiple iterations now and while there’s always been “issues,” nothing like this has ever happened, never mind all the other fan issues in the other stadiums, the fields not being in good condition, poor training facilities, inconsistent refereeing, etc. do conmebol and ussf really hate each other that much that there seems to have been 0 communication or cross communication when planning this event?