2026 Predictions: Football, F1 & Bold Future Trends

2026 has clear highlights in the form of the Olympics in Italy and the FIFA World Cup, shared between the USA, Canada and Mexico. What will not only these mega events bring, but also other events of the next 12 months?

List The reports have written 11 scenarios, which often go purposefully to the most extreme variants. And why not? The beauty of sport, among other things, lies precisely in its ability to generate stories from the extremely unexpected category.

Do you have any idea how many Czech football brands have won any of the European cups in history? If you don’t know from the spot, at least a little help. For a) two. For b) one. For c) none.

Option C is correct, if we do not count the common history and the year 1969, when the puffed-up Slovan Bratislava overpowered the famous Barcelona 3:2 in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup. They were the first Eastern Bloc club to conquer Europe.

Will Sparta imitate him this year? He can easily. “After all, in my eyes, that’s the only way she could fix the season if she doesn’t manage to win the league title,” said former league player Tomáš Kučera in the MVP podcast in December, in which Seznam Zprávy comments on football events.

If you think these are bold words, then let’s face the reality. Although Sparta is cowering in the shadow of Slavia in the Czech league, it has gained hope in Europe. She advanced to the top sixteen, and as sports director Tomáš Rosický says: “The final must be our goal.”

There are three steps left until the final, which is played in nearby Leipzig. No wonder Sparta has guts. Even if it is not the Champions League or the Europa League, even the third of the cup competitions has its weight. AS Roma, West Ham (in Eden), Olympiakos Piraeus and Chelsea have won the four previous editions of the Conference League.

At that time, a fantastic aura hovered over Czech sport – after all, in January 1998, a month before the unforgettable Nagan, an event of a similar nature occurred. Petr Korda won the Australian Open and his triumphant footstool over the blue courts in Melbourne remains to this day the only celebration of winning a Grand Slam title for a tennis player from the independent Czech Republic.

This has long been the case for the powerhouse of women’s tennis, but the male generation is maturing, perhaps even surpassing its female colleagues with a racket. Jiří Lehečka (18th in the ATP ranking) and Jakub Menšík (19th) belong to the wider top. Menšík won a major title in Miami last year, even in the era of the pair of modern-day tennis emperors Alcaraz and Sinner.

Bold tip: Wait until the US Open in September. Menšík, in particular, has potential thanks to his top serve, and it can help both of them that Alcaraz is entering the new season after parting ways with coach Ferrer, who brought him up in tennis.

Again, it is not as nactiurhach idea, as it seems at first glance. Yes, hockey’s proudest country has the Connor McDavid-Nathan MacKinnon forward pair, which resembles a pair of supermen adding speed to their skates like on PlayStation. It has Cale Makar, who redefined the possibilities of a 21st century hockey defenseman.

But he also has a major problem in the goal area. The number one will probably be Jordan Binnington, who, according to statistics, is trapped in the very bottom of the NHL. Even other variants do not frighten the opponent – and the short tournament in Milan will, as always, primarily be a duel between goalkeepers.

Instead of Canadians, we see Americans on the throne. A team with fantastic options between the posts, where Connor Hellebuyck, the last Hart Trophy winner, and the man of the future, Jake Oettinger, compete. A team that knows how to fight and score goals equally well.

If the USA wins, it will not be a modern-day “miracle on the ice”, just a confirmation of the fact that in North America there are two very balanced hockey powers next to each other.

The tiny Caribbean island has already celebrated its historic feat. As the smallest country, it advanced to the football championship in America. Dutch coach Dick Advocaat, who was 78 years old, was eulogized. As the biggest outsider and the 82nd ranked team in the world, Curaçao plays in a group with Germany, Ecuador and Ivory Coast. Chances of success? Minimum! But currently, it is still a million percent more likely that he will get more points than the Czech Republic in the tournament.

Don’t say you missed the tribulations of the national team. He struggled through the qualification, lost coach Ivan Hašek, incited the fans against him, installed Miroslav Koubek as coach only after two months of inaction (he is only three years younger than his colleague Advocaat) and now he is looking forward to a terribly difficult playoff.

Only in March will it be decided whether the Czechs will even be able to compete with the island from the Antilles. First, they have to defeat Ireland and, in the eventual final, the better of the pair, Denmark / North Macedonia. So far it looks like Curaçao will get more points.

That would be something! Two of the best footballers of the modern era and quite possibly of all time. Just imagine that on July 19th as captains, first in line, stomping down the tunnel of a sold-out stadium in New Jersey.

World Cup final, Portugal versus Argentina.

Ronaldo will be forty-one, Messi thirty-nine. Football pensioners in action.

Their last game in the national team? Battle for the World Grail? Why not, after all, sport can create even bigger miracles.

A detour into the realm of fantasy, however, the idea that teenagers or women will swallow the circling of formulas in circles appeared as fantasizing not too long ago. However, what was once a festival of boredom has become a first-class sports and business affair, fueled, among other things, by the award-winning Netflix project called Drive to Survive.

An even greater drive would be given to F1 if – even if only for a moment – a woman sat behind the wheel. The first such was Maria Teresa de Filippisová in 1958, a successor is awaited. When it arrives, it could be a breakthrough with the Czech track. The future champions are trying to nurture initiative More than Equalsubsidized by one of the richest domestic billionaires, Karl Komárek (whose Allwyn is also one of the main sponsors of the champions from McLaren).

For F1, it would be a matter of consolidating the position of one of the best performing industries today. That is why we are already betting on the year 2026. Doriane Pinová, a French competitor in the F1 Academy, or Colombian Tatiana Calderónová, among others, an F2 test driver, can be among the potential candidates.

When? We don’t know. Against whom? Even that remains unclear. On the contrary, Jiří Procházka’s determination to once again push the boundaries of Czech MMA is obvious. The year 2025 brought him two victories, now he has a clear goal: to win the title of champion again and follow up on the feat of June 2022, when he smashed the Brazilian Teixeira in New York.

The variant in which Procházka would fight for the third time against another Brazilian, Alex Pereira, to whom he lost in both previous battles, would be extremely spicy. After his triumph over the American Rountree in October, the official UFC account called Procházka the “king of chaos”, which is another certainty: Whoever he fights, it won’t be boring. Thanks to him, the dynamic sports sector is looking forward to another big milestone in the Czech Republic.

That sports are just the antics of sweaty people? Silly prejudice, sport is an art form. As British Olympian Kate Rooney said of the most brilliant athlete of today to the BBC: “His performance is poetry in motion.”

The singer is Armand Duplantis, a phenomenon from Sweden. The man nicknamed Mondo has already moved the world record to 630 centimeters in the pole vault; that’s a figure that would have seemed about as likely to Sergey Bubko in his prime as a trip to Saturn.

But Duplantis provides evidence that – stylistically speaking – the sky really is the limit. He prefers to improve world records centimetres, also because of smart business. This time, however, he is going straight for ten. And he will push the bar where no one has gone before.

Are sports and politics separate worlds? For such a naive phrase today, you need the faith of the early Christians, and unfortunately, politics in sports “steps” the most when pedaling. This was confirmed by last year’s events at the Vuelta, which were crippled by the actions of pro-Palestinian protesters and the final stage remained without a winner as protesters stormed the track.

Recent years have been uncomfortably rich in so-called black swans, unexpected events destroying the status quo. And this is a tip from the black category: After the recent protests by farmers or environmental activists at the Tour de France and the autumn rampage in Spain, cycling will slow down to zero when one of the three legendary Grand Tours races (Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta) destroys the protests so much that it cannot even declare a winner.

Well of course! And not just once! If football shooters want to pay their respects to the Vršovice poet, this year they have a unique chance. It has been exactly 50 years since Antonín Panenka took the iconic penalty in Belgrade, during which he caught the ball with his right instep and conjured gold for Czechoslovakia at the European Championship.

Dlubáčka has been nicknamed ever since doll and is one of the most cunning kicks in football.

As far as the Czech league is concerned, we bet that Jan Chramosta from Jablonec will be the first Panenkov scorer in 2026. Technical, experienced and cheeky is enough.