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After a four-year long wait, 2026 brings back the biggest event in football — the FIFA World Cup. This edition of the prestigious competition
is being hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, with the games happening in 16 cities from the three nations.
The draw will be happening at 12:00PM EST at the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts at Washington D.C. The event hosted by Heidi Klum, Kevin Hart and Danny Ramirez will feature performances from Andrea Bocelli, Robbie Williams and Nicole Scherzinger.
The Kennedy Centre will also host US President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino set to address the audience following the draw.
The draw itself, will be conducted by former Manchester United and England great Rio Ferdinand with Samantha Johnson, who has also hosted the draws for prior FIFA Club World Cups. The procedure will be assisted by sporting legends Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Aaron Judge and Shaquille O’Neal.
As is the case with the UEFA Champions League, the draw will be almost entirely computerized.
Who is playing?
So far, we have the draw pots — four cups, twelve teams each for a total of 48 teams. Except, the last pot still has six slots empty. This is for all the teams that did not qualify from the draw, and made it to the playoffs instead. Following the playoffs in March, these six slots will be filled.
The playoff spots will be competed for by the following teams:
UEFA A: Italy, Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland
UEFA B: Ukraine, Poland, Albania, Sweden
UEFA C: Turkey, Slovakia, Kosovo, Romania
UEFA 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
How did the teams get placed?
The teams that cleared the qualifiers were placed based on their FIFA rankings. This places Spain, Argentina, France and England, the top four ranked national teams in the first pot. Germany too is in the first pot.
The host nations USA, Canada and Mexico also go to pot 1 by default.
What is going to happen in the draw?
The competition will happen with twelve groups with four teams each. These teams will compete in the group stage. The first drawn will be pot 1, and then 2, 3 and 4.
Since the host nations have fixed group positions, the draw will begin with their positions already in A for Mexico, B for Canada and D for the US. These teams will also be playing at home only.
The top four kept apart rule
This year, FIFA introduced a new rule — the top four nations will be kept apart, given they win their groups.
This means
- Spain (rank #1) and Argentina (rank #2) cannot meet before the final, and neither can France (#3) and England (#4).
- #1 cannot face #3 or #4 until the semifinals and #2 cannot face them either.
More restrictions
This part gets messy. By the rules, no two teams from a confederation can face each other in the group stage.
But, there’s an exception. Since UEFA has an overwhelmingly high number of teams, a single group can contain MORE THAN ONE European team.
So further into the draw, placements might start looking random or bizarre, skipping the order, but this is simply to ensure no confederation clashes.
However, this creates a confusion — what must be done for the six teams that enter via playoffs?
What might ensue is that these teams will be placed as a combination of two European nations and one other nation, or a combination of three teams from different continents. However, the actual implementation of this will be seen only after the play-offs.
Whew, that’s a lot. But here at Bavarian Football Works, we’re here to make it easier. Join us on the live thread to discuss the draw and talk Germany!
