4,500km의 광기

At the 2026 World Cup, some teams will have to fly over 8,000 kilometers during the group stage. Not the knockout stage. The group stage. Three matches. Three cities. Three climate zones. For example, you fly from Vancouver (14°C, rain) to Miami (38°C, 90% humidity), then to Boston (22°C, possible rain). Your body goes through a journey from winter to summer and back to spring in nine days. Your circadian rhythm gets lost across three different time zones. Your knees swell on the plane—remember what we talked about in the Story series? The cabin pressure halts your muscle recovery. When you land, you’re not ready for the next match. You’re ready to collapse on the hotel bed, praying your team doctor has a recovery technique we haven’t invented yet.

A sports physiologist once told me: “The World Cup champion won’t be the team that plays the best. It’ll be the team that flies the least.” He wasn’t joking. When FIFA’s scheduling computer generates the fixtures, it theoretically considers geographic proximity—but “theoretically” in the complex math of 48 teams is a completely different thing from reality. Some teams get a relatively compact schedule. Others—like that unlucky Argentina team we tracked in the Story series—get thrown into a flight route map spanning the entire North American continent. In the end, what decides the champion might not be your skill. It’s your flight mileage.