Hello everyone!

Unless you’re an American, you probably know that the Lesser footy World Cup will be happening in less than a week’s time. And unless you’re part of the 0.05% of hardcore Canadian lesser footy fans, you also probably didn’t know that Canada qualified for the second time ever–the first time since ’86. Being a long time suffering Canadian lesser footy fan, I decided to go through the long, arduous ticket application process in hopes to win World Cup tickets through the FIFA lottery. And wouldn’t you know who won the pony, I won, meaning I’ll be going to this year’s Lesser Footy World Cup in Qatar!

As of right now, my goal is to do some boots on the ground write ups for each game I attend, as well as the overall atmosphere (what do you mean I can’t have casual sex, or non-heterosexual sex, get hammered, or smuggle cocaine into the country because it will result in an automatic death sentence!?! I’m sorry, I thought the Nazis lost the war?). That’s the goal, but whether I have adequate Wifi/have time/get arrested/or get kidnapped and have my organs sold on the black market, remains to be seen. With this World Cup looming and the 2026 tournament being held in North America, this post is to provide you with information about how to get World Cup lesser footy tickets without having to suck a ton of dick*. Before I get to that, here’s a little bit of information about myself.

What compelled me to apply for tickets to this year’s World Cup is because I’ve been following Canada’s embarrassingly bad attempts at qualifying since ’93. Over the years, I’ve witnessed my hopes get crushed, experienced absolute rage when introduced to CONCACAF corruption/reffing, felt indifferent in a cycle or two because it was painfully obvious Canada couldn’t beat Anguilla in the earliest qualifying stages most people have never even heard about–let alone a mid-level CONCACAF team like Haiti or Suriname, which are teams they’d face in the later but not final rounds of qualifying– and bitter disappointment when Canadian eligible players opted to play for other nations.

Some notable games/decisions that traumatized me and I still think about several times a year:

The Paul Peschi-Stupido Incident in ’98: In a critical game in the final stages of World Cup qualifying (which was then called The Hex), Paul Peschisolido and the rest of the Canadians were getting CONCACAF’d** (meaning the other team was allowed to commit 2nd degree assault without getting booked while the Canadian players just had to be in a social distancing radius and would get carded) against El Salvador. Frustrated, Peschisolido elbowed the corner flag, which hit the player in the face, and he got red carded. Despite Canada drawing, Paul was one of Canada’s better players and that pretty much killed Canada’s last, legitimately strong chances to qualify for a World Cup until this cycle. To exacerbate things, prior to the final round of qualification, then coach, Bob Lenarduzzi, had a falling out with Canada’s second-best goal scorer, Dominic Mobilio. Upon this happening, Mobilio went on Vancouver radio (shoutout to CKNW) and openly questioned Lendarduzzi’s motives. This resulted in Lendarduzzi calling in and cutting an insane wrestling promo on Mobilio, basically stating that Mobilio would never play for Canada again so long as Lendarduzzi was still alive.

Canada vs Costa Rica during the 2006 World Cup Qualifying: This was the closest I’ve ever been to breaking a TV. Canada got CONCACAF’d so badly in this game that if this was a movie, people would think it was too farfetched. Canada lost, got eliminated and then went into a period of extreme irrelevance.

Honduras beats Canada 8-1 during the 2014 World Cup qualifiers: Understandably, Canada choked. It was an unsafe environment where there were literal death threats being given to the Canadians inside their hotel rooms. The stadium was packed 2.5 hours before kickoff and they were extremely hostile, throwing bags of piss, debris, etc. at the Canadian players, while armed guards had their guns pointed at the Canadians.

Great players opting to not play for Canada:

Did you know there has been at least one Canadian defector player that has played at a World Cup since ’98? Part of Canada’s problem with being competitive is that they have had several players over the years that chose not to play for them, and instead opted to play for their parent’s or ancestor’s country. Canada would be a lot further along had players like Man United’s Owen Hargreaves (England), Barcelona’s Jonathan de Guzman (Netherlands), Portsmouth/Chelsea’s Asmir Begovic (Bosnia & Herezegovina), Teal Bunbury (America), and Feyenoord’s Jacob Lensky (Czech Republic) played for Canada.

Update: Suck it Marcelo Flores, Stefan Mitrovic, and Fikayo Tomori. You guys could have gone to 2 straight World Cups, and now you’ll go to none. I hope you liked being played, you fucking jabronis. Especially Stefan Mitrovic, who listened to his father, who was talking out of his ass.

How the process works: The Lottery

First, you have to register on the FIFA webpage and enter to win the FIFA ticket lottery. There are 3 lotteries spread over 4 months: one in January, March and April.

There’s also this random pop-up day in February. If you happen to get the notification–don’t get me started on that bullshit and who gets notified and who does not– it will let you know they’re having a pop-up day, and that you can log into your FIFA account and straight up buy tickets during the tiny period that the ticket buying option is open. While I didn’t get the notification, I had a gut feeling about a pop-up day. Sadly, I missed out by an hour.

If you happen to win the ticket lottery (I won on my third and final attempt), you get a designated time–with a bajillion other people– to enter to sign up for tickets. Most people select a variety pack, where it’s a randomized set of games assigned to you. For me, where my whole purpose is to watch Canada, I opted against the variety pack and manually selected all the Canadian games, plus 7 other games. After the ticket registration process ends, there’s a 48-72 hour gap before you will get a confirmation of games that you will be assigned. Out of the 10 games that I applied for, I was assigned to 4 games; All 3 Canada games and France versus Tunisia (It’s a colonizer vs Colonized derby!). Even though you are approved of these matches, you still don’t get the tickets until months later, and it’s all electronic.

Passport/Hayya

Always make sure that your passport is up-to-date. Mine expired during Covid so I had to go through hell to get a new passport. You’ll need it to get your Hayya and be able to book your accommodation.

Upon approval of tickets purchased, the next step is to purchase the Hayya card. This is essentially a VISA that also gives the person access to free public transportation throughout the duration of the tournament. As an aside, Qatar’s public transportation appears to be lightyears ahead of North America’s to the point it’s pretty embarrassing. This needs to change.