2026 FIFA World Cup: Minnows and giants know their groups

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will see a record 48 teams competing to become football’s world champion with Cape Verde, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Curaçao appearing for the first time.

The biggest-ever edition of football’s global showpiece will see 104 games featuring 48 teams played across 16 host cities in three countries—Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Next year's tournament kicks off in Mexico City on 11 June and will come to an end with the final being played in New York, New Jersey stadium on 19 July.

The draw ceremony for initial group stages took place on Friday at the Kennedy Centre in Washington. FIFA announced all 12 groups that include the 42 teams already qualified and reserved the slots for the six teams that have yet to make it through the play-offs.

The play-offs will be played in March. Four teams will be decided in the UEFA play-offs, with the other two coming from the FIFA Play-off Tournament.

The expanded tournament will see Cape Verde, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Curaçao appearing in the World Cup for the first time. Curaçao, a Caribbean island nation, is the smallest country by population size to have ever qualified to the tournament.

Games will be played at 11 NFL stadiums in the US along with three in Mexico and two in Canada, where construction is underway to add 17,000 temporary seats to BMO Field, raising capacity to around 45,000. Attendance for the games is expected to top the record 3.59 million in 1994 when the World Cup was held in the US.

The world's top 11-ranked teams have all qualified, although Italy are among the 22 countries competing in playoffs for the final six berths.

Led by captain Lionel Messi, Argentina, which won the last World Cup, is seeking to become the first nation to win consecutive tournaments since Brazil in 1958 and 1962.

Messi will also look to extend his record of 26 games played and enters with 13 career World Cup goals, three shy of Miroslav Klose’s record.

THE 12 GROUPS

Group A: Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, UEFA Play-off D

Group B: Canada, Qatar, Switzerland, UEFA Play-off A

Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Scotland, Haiti

Group D: USA, Paraguay, Australia, UEFA Play-off C

Group E: Germany, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Curaçao

Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Tunisia, UEFA Play-off B

Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand

Group H: Spain, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Cape Verde

Group I: France, Senegal, Norway, Fifa Play-off 2

Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan

Group K: Portugal, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Fifa Play-off 1

Group L: England, Croatia, Panama, Ghana

THE SIX PLAY-OFF PATHS

UEFA Play-off A: Italy, Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland

UEFA Play-off B: Ukraine, Poland, Albania, Sweden

UEFA Play-off C: Turkey, Slovakia, Kosovo, Romania

UEFA Play-off D: Denmark, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland, North Macedonia

Fifa Play-off 1: DR Congo, Jamaica, New Caledonia

Fifa Play-off 2: Iraq, Bolivia, Suriname