Everything you need to know about 2026 World Cup draw
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The 2026 FIFA World Cup is on the horizon, with teams and fans alike eager to learn of potential paths to glory. Here's everything you need to know ahead of Friday's draw for the expanded tournament in North America.
Details
When: Friday, Dec. 5
Where: Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.)
Time: 12 p.m. ET
How to watch
Canada: TSN, RDS
United States: FOX, Telemundo
FIFA will also provide live coverage on its website.
Teams and seeding
The 48 teams involved - only 42 of which are currently known, more on that soon - are divided into four pots based on the latest edition of the FIFA rankings. As tournament co-hosts, Canada, Mexico, and the United States are automatically placed in Pot 1, per standard FIFA protocol.
Pot 1: Canada (co-host), Mexico (co-host), United States (co-host), Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany
Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia
Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curacao, Haiti, New Zealand, UEFA Playoff A, UEFA Playoff B, UEFA Playoff C, UEFA Playoff D, Intercontinental Playoff 1, Intercontinental Playoff 2
Friday's draw will split the 48 teams evenly into 12 groups.
For a full breakdown of how each team has qualified thus far, tap here.
Why isn't the entire field confirmed?
Six World Cup berths remain up for grabs: Four European teams will qualify via UEFA's playoff tournaments, and two nations will earn tickets through the intercontinental playoff paths.
FIFA will use placeholders - outlined above in Pot 4 - for those spots during the draw, so the playoff teams will know their potential groups before they take the field in March 2026 to actually determine who gets those final World Cup places.
Every playoff winner is allocated to Pot 4 regardless of FIFA ranking. That means a team like Italy, despite being No. 12 in the world, could be drawn alongside another marquee nation (or two) to form a formidable quartet. That's assuming the Italians actually qualify this time, of course.
Here are the playoff participants.
UEFA Playoff A: Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina
UEFA Playoff B: Ukraine, Sweden, Poland, Albania
UEFA Playoff C: Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo
UEFA Playoff D: Denmark, North Macedonia, Czechia, Ireland
Intercontinental Playoff 1: DR Congo, Jamaica, New Caledonia
Intercontinental Playoff 2: Iraq, Bolivia, Suriname
So, how does the draw actually work?
Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. have been preassigned groups as co-hosts. Mexico, taking part in the tournament's opening match, will be placed in Group A, Canada slots into Group B, and the Americans are in Group D.
From there, the draw begins in earnest with the other teams in Pot 1 being placed in the remaining groups from A to L. The process will then be repeated for the remaining pots in numerical order; all of Pot 2 will be drawn, then all of Pot 3 and then the entirety of Pot 4 to complete proceedings.
In a new wrinkle for this tournament, FIFA is introducing a tennis-style bracket intended to keep the world's four highest-ranked teams - Spain, Argentina, France, and England - in different quarters of the draw. Assuming all four win their respective groups, they can't meet until the semifinals.
Are there any restrictions?
As always, teams from the same confederation can't be placed together in the same group. UEFA is the lone exception to this rule. With 16 European nations in the tournament, it's impossible to keep them all apart. Every group will have at least one European team but no more than two.
That same condition applies to all the teams involved in the intercontinental playoffs. When those two placeholders are drawn from Pot 4, a computer will help FIFA determine any potential matchup restrictions.
World Cup schedule
The full match schedule won't be revealed on the day of the draw.
FIFA, in another departure from standard World Cup protocol, said it will use a live broadcast Saturday at noon, 24 hours after the draw, to reveal the venues and kickoff times for all 104 tournament matches.
The governing body intends to put the games in specific locations based on time zones - of which there are multiple at play across the host nations - to "ensure the best possible conditions for all teams and spectators while, where possible, enabling fans all over the world to watch their teams play live."
Mexico's iconic Estadio Azteca will stage the opening fixture of the supersized event on June 11, 2026.
The World Cup final will be played July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
- Group stage: June 11-27
- Round of 32: June 28-July 3
- Round of 16: July 4-7
- Quarterfinals: July 8-11
- Semifinals: July 14-15
- Third-place match: July 18
- Final: July 19
A total of 16 venues will be used at the biggest-ever World Cup, with 78 of the 104 games taking place in the U.S.
Anything else to know?
FIFA created a new award, the FIFA Peace Prize, that will be handed out during Friday's draw to "recognize exceptional actions for peace." Governing body president Gianni Infantino will personally present the award, which is widely expected to be bestowed on U.S. President Donald Trump.