The draw ceremony for the 2026 FIFA World cup has taken place at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, with next year’s tournament kicking off in Mexico City on 11 June.
FIFA announced all 12 groups that include the 42 teams in a ceremony at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, but won’t announce the full calendar until Saturday.
It will take an extra day to work out logistics and match time slots so that, for example, European teams will be scheduled to play in time slots more convenient for a European audience.
Six of the participating teams at the World Cup have yet to be determined and will only be known in March 2026. Four of those will be decided in the UEFA play-offs, with the other two coming from the FIFA Play-off Tournament.
Here’s a look at the breakdown of all 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
And here’s what the six play-off paths look like:
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
World Cup newcomers
A record 48 teams will take part next year with Cape Verde, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Curaçao all appearing in football’s premier event for the first time when the tournament is played from 11 June-19 July at 16 sites in the US, Mexico and Canada.
Games will be played at 11 NFL stadiums 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 will top the record 3.59 million in 1994.
“I’m quite optimistic because to qualify you need to beat the other teams of your confederations and that’s a sign of quality,” former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said.
“The teams are not there by coincidence.”
The world’s top 11-ranked teams have all qualified, with number 1 Italy among the 22 countries competing in playoffs for the final six berths to be decided on 31 March.
Led by captain Lionel Messi, Argentina is seeking to become the first nation to win consecutive World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Messi will look to extend his record of 26 games played and enters with 13 career World Cup goals, three shy of Miroslav Klose’s record.
FIFA announced initial ticket prices of $60-$6,370 (€51-€5,473), saying they would be dynamic. It has so far refused to release a complete list of prices, as it had for every other World Cup since at least 1990.
The governing body also is selling parking passes for up to $175 (€150) for a single match, a semifinal in Arlington, Texas.
FIFA spokesman Bryan Swanson did not respond to a request for FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss ticket prices.
Opta Analyst’s computer projects has the host country US with a 0.9% chance of winning. The Americans haven’t reached the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930.
Spain tops the forecast at 17%, followed by France (14.1%), England (11.8%), Argentina (8.7%), Germany (7.1.%), Portugal (6.6%), Brazil (5.6%) and the Netherlands (5.2%).
