World Cup 2026 Draw: Everything You Need to Know
25th November 2025
We all love club football, but does the beautiful game get any better than the World Cup?
FIFA have expanded the quadrennial tournament to 48 teams, which means more games, more goals, more shots, more tackles, more… well, anything and everything you can place in your bet builders or accas.
We’ve published our comprehensive guide to the World Cup 2026 format, which confirms how the new group and knockout system will work.
And with World Cup qualifying pretty much complete – the play-offs are the final piece of the jigsaw next March, all that’s left to do is await the all-important 2026 World Cup draw.
When is the Draw for World Cup 2026?
As you may know, the tournament will take place across the United States, Canada and Mexico – we’ve profiled each of the World Cup 2026 host cities and their stadia in a helpful article.
The draw will fittingly take place in the USA, with the Kennedy Center in Washington DC acting as the venue for Gianni Infantino and co to pull the shiny balls out of their bag.
If all goes to schedule, the 2026 World Cup draw will take place on Friday December 5 at 17:00 GMT.
How Does the 2026 World Cup Draw Work?
The 48 teams participating in the 2026 World Cup are added to four pots, according to their world ranking.
Into Pot 1 go the best in the business: reigning World Cup champions Argentina, beaten finalists France, European champions Spain, England, Brazil, Portugal etc. As tournament hosts, the USA, Canada and Mexico also get placed in Pot 1.
In Pot 2 are the ‘next best’: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia and so on, with pots three and four also selected via the world ranking of the participating teams.
Each World Cup 2026 group is made up of four teams, with a nation drawn at random from each pot. So, in theory, the seeded teams in Pot 1 get an easier route to the knockout phase, as their opponents are of a perceived lower quality.
But this is the World Cup… and anything can happen.
Who Has Qualified for the 2026 World Cup?
At the time of writing, 42 of the 48 teams playing at the 2026 World Cup are known.
There’s three host nations: USA, Canada and Mexico.
There’s 12 automatic qualifiers from Europe:
· Austria
· Belgium
· Croatia
· England
· France
· Germany
· Netherlands
· Norway
· Portugal
· Scotland
· Spain
· Switzerland
From South America, confirmed qualifiers are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay.
From Asia, it’s Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Uzbekistan.
The African qualifiers for World Cup 2026 are Algeria, Cape Verde, Mo Salah’s Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Switzerland.
New Zealand have come through the Oceania qualifying campaign, while Curacao will make their World Cup debut from the Caribbean section alongside Haiti and Panama.
How Do the Play-Offs Work for the World Cup?
And then there’s the World Cup 2026 play-offs. One of Wales, Northern Ireland, Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina will make it through from Path A, with Ukraine, Sweden, Poland and Albania contesting Path B.
Only one team can qualify from each pathway, so it’s a shootout between Turkey, Romania, Slovakia and Kosovo in Path C and the Republic of Ireland, Czech Republic, Denmark and North Macedonia in Path D.
In the inter-confederation play-offs, Congo will play either Jamaica or New Caledonia for a place at World Cup 2026, while Iraq awaits the winner of Bolivia and Suriname.
Who Will England Play at World Cup 2026?
We will, of course, find out on December 5.
But as we know, England won’t play against any other Pot 1 team in the group stage, which means they’ll avoid Argentina, France, Spain, Germany and a host of other top teams.
Their group could feature a renewal of cricketing rivalries with Australia, Erling Haaland’s Norway or Scotland, and then any one of the Republic of Ireland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
However, only two teams from the UEFA jurisdiction can play in a single group, which means that England will only have one other European country in their group.