Henry Roldán
In 2023, the World Baseball Classic returns after a five-year absence, and we already know how the tournament that brings together the best players of baseball is going to happen.
On Thursday, the official social media account of the championship announced the schedule that will begin in March of next year and that will have Taiwan, Japan, Phoenix and Miami as first round venues.
It was also confirmed that the quarterfinals will be played in Tokyo and Miami, with the latter city hosting the semifinals and the final of the championship to be played on March 21.
For this new edition, four more countries were added, bringing the total number of participants to 20. Sixteen of them have already been confirmed, while the other four will come from the qualifiers to be held in September and October in Germany and Panama, respectively.
Between September 16 and 21, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, France, South Africa and Spain will play for two World Cup berths in the A qualifiers, while on Central American soil Argentina, Brazil, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Panama will do the same in October during the B qualifiers.
Following the announcement, the pools for the 2023 World Baseball Classic were as follows:
Pool A
- China Taipei
- Netherlands
- Cuba
- Italy
- Country number 1 from qualifier A
Pool B
- Japan
- South Korea
- Australia
- China
- Country number 2 from qualifier A
Group C
- United States
- Mexico
- Colombia
- Canada
- Country number 1 from qualifier B
Group D
- Puerto Rico
- Venezuela
- Dominican Republic
- Israel
- Country number 2 from qualifier A
Each team will play four matches in the first round, with the top two countries in each of the above-mentioned pools qualifying for the quarterfinals.
Who have been the winners of the World Baseball Classic?
The 2023 edition of the World Baseball Classic will be the fourth edition of the tournament, which has three different champions.
While the first two championships disputed in 2006 and 2009 had Japan as the winning team, in 2013 the top honors went to Dominican Republic while in 2017, the last time the Classic was disputed, the champion was the United States team.
