IN BRIEF
- Researchers say that travel and logistics are impacting player performance at the World Cup.
- The 2026 tournament spans across three countries, 16 cities and multiple time zones.
Before the FIFA World Cup even kicked off, the Socceroos embarked on one of the longest journeys of the competition.
A direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver in Canada spans around 12,000 km, though the Socceroos' route was indirect. The Socceroos began their pre-tournament bootcamp in Florida, then headed to base camp in California, before heading to BC Place stadium, where the Socceroos defeated Türkiye earlier this month.
As the tournament enters the decisive third round of the group stages, determining who goes through to the knock-out rounds, the extensive travel at the the longest-ever World Cup and fatiguing conditions are causing debate.
Experts say that generally speaking the impact of travel on players will differ for individuals, and may not necessarily impact sleep, appetite and recovery too badly.
But researcher Luke Jenkinson believes long-haul travel will definitely affect footballers throughout the World Cup, to varying extents. The head of performance at San Diego Football Club in the US told SBS News it "will have an impact on football or the physical preparation and also recovery of athletes."
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"Part of the conundrum is that there isn't only the aspect of travel but there's … [varying] locations and weather and general topography … across North America."
The 2026 competition is the largest ever edition, bringing together 48 teams across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. But this scale could present complex logistical challenges.
In the group stage, Curaçao — the smallest nation in the World Cup — will travel over 10,000km. Over the same period, Mexico — the first team to qualify for the knockout stage — will travel just under 1,000km.
Jenkinson categorised the potential impact of travel on the Socceroos, who are based on the US West Coast, in California's San Francisco Bay area, as "moderate".
He has calculated the Socceroos will travel 4,815km over their three group stage games.
Australia's opponent for their decisive third group stage match on Friday, Paraguay, has only had to travel 640 km since the tournament began, the second lowest of any squad behind co-hosts Mexico.
Teams will also cross as many as three time zones for a single match, according to Jenkinson's research, which has been published in the Science and Medicine in Football journal.
He admits while many footballers (including members of the Australian squad) are accustomed to travelling in Europe's top leagues, these distances are substantially shorter. They're also typically confined to a single time zone, or only have to deal with a one-hour time difference (between the UK and Europe), unlike the World Cup.
So far, Australia has reigned supreme against Türkiye in Vancouver — just over a two-hour flight directly north of their base in California — and suffered a loss against the USA in Seattle, a near-identical flight. Their match against Paraguay on Friday is set to take place at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, which is about a 45-minute drive from the team hotel.
"Now, I think that's very much intentionally placed ... they're not crossing time zones, so they're travelling north and south," Jenkinson said.
"They played in Vancouver, which is in a [temperature-controlled] indoor arena. Likewise, Seattle and San Francisco are pretty warm places to be."
In contrast, Bosnia and Herzegovina played their opening match against Canada in Toronto and then flew across three time zones to the US West Coast for their second match against Switzerland.
Impacts of travel considered a 'sliding scale'
Rob Duffield is a professor of sport and exercise science at the University of Technology Sydney. He said when the Socceroos qualified for the tournament in June 2025, wit provided much more time to prepare than a team like Iraq, which clinched the final spot at the World Cup in March this year.
"Australia had started doing detailed mapping and planning practice matches at times and locations to familiarise themselves with their demands," Duffield said.
"The other thing is, obviously the teams from federations with high budgets to spend on flights, travel and practice matches in locations to familiarise themselves better, [which] is also an advantage."
He also believes the impacts of travel on athletes can vary based on team or individual circumstances.
"At some point, based on prior familiarity, current experience or match congestion, travel becomes an issue. But whether that's at four to five hours or 10 to 12 hours depends on a range of factors."
Duffield said this year's competition contains the "best" and "worst" of elements, including extreme summer temperatures and high altitude. It's a reality some teams may be forced to encounter throughout the competition, while others may avoid it.
"I think what we might see is that if nations get through or get further than they expected they would do, then they might not have a plan in place and that then might start to become a bit more of an issue for them."
Craig Pickering, director of performance sustainability at Australian Athletics, believes this variability "definitely" provides some teams with an "edge".
The Azteca stadium in Mexico City sits at more than 2,200m above sea level, while Guadalajara in western Mexico is over 1,500m above sea level.
"If you live there all the time, then you don't have to go through any of those changes. Whereas if you're used to playing and training at sea level in Europe, then you've got the time change, you've got the climate change, and you've got the altitude," Pickering said.
"You need a reasonable amount of time to actually get adaptations in place ... so they [World Cup teams] would probably be communicating with players a year, maybe two years in advance."
Calls for 'operational calmness'
Jenkinson said sporting clubs are increasingly considering travel preparedness or a term he's dubbed "operational calmness". An awareness of what external factors can and cannot be controlled.
However he believes this World Cup tournament could change how multinational sporting events operate.
"We have historically seen the Olympics being held in single-host nations, but some of the financial burdens from the infrastructure that's in place ... we may start to see tournaments [moving] over larger geographical space."
The 2030 World Cup will be staged across three continents and six countries, including Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay as part of FIFA centenary celebrations.
You can watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ live, free and exclusive on SBS, SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand.
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