WEEKLY WHINE

Men’s World Cup expansion: What then?

Thank you for joining us for our examination of FIFA’s decision to expand the Men’s World Cup to 48 teams. We will now conclude by conducting the draw for the 2026 Men’s World Cup given the qualifying results that we presented last week.

• How? [a proposed draft schedule for the 2026 Men’s World Cup]
• Why?, by Edvard van de Kamp
• Why not?, by Gaby Gandalucci
• Where? [potential hosts of future tournaments]
• Who? [a proposed qualifying format]
• Who, specifically? [the projected outcome of our proposed qualifying format]

FINAL DRAW

The qualifying process ended with two sets of playoffs. The sixteen seeding playoffs were between two teams that have already qualified; the winners ended up in Pot 1, and the losers were placed in Pot 2. The sixteen repechage playoffs decided the last sixteen teams to qualify; the winners were placed in Pot 3.

The draw divided the teams into sixteen groups of three; each group contains one team from each pot. We had twenty UEFA teams qualify, so there are four groups containing two UEFA teams. All other groups contain no more than one team from each confederation. Teams in Pot 1 and Pot 2 who had played one another in the seeding playoffs were allowed to be allocated to the same group. This happened with Libya and Ireland Rep in Group K, and with Costa Rica and Côte d’Ivoire in Group L.

Upon completion of the draw, the bye dates for each team were selected. In each group, the team from pot 1 had the first choice, and the team from pot 2 selected from the remaining options. Below are the results of the draw, along with each team’s selected bye date: matchday 1, 2, or 3.

MATCHES