MOSCOW — Carlos Cordeiro, the new president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, says he has lost track of the exact number of countries he’s visited and people he’s individually lobbied the past four months as part of an exhaustive effort to bring the 2026 World Cup to the United States, Mexico and Canada.
London one day, Bratislava the next, Copenhagen, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg …
“We end up in these godforsaken airport hotels,” he said of three well-traveled delegations on separate whirlwind tours. “We tease each other about the shirt that wasn’t washed.”
The campaign is almost over, the final step coming Wednesday when, on the eve of the 2018 World Cup opener between Russia and Saudi Arabia at Luzhniki Stadium, 200-plus national federations in the FIFA family will choose North America or Morocco to stage soccer’s quadrennial tournament in eight years.