{"id":1869,"date":"2025-11-07T17:47:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:47:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:47:42","slug":"2026-fifa-world-cup-draws-for-qualifying-playoffs-in-zurich-on-nov-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1869","title":{"rendered":"2026 FIFA World Cup: Draws for Qualifying Playoffs in Zurich on Nov. 20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>FIFA will host draws on Nov. 20 in Zurich for playoff brackets to decide the last six entries at the 48-team 2026 World Cup, the world soccer body said Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>The European brackets will have 16 teams \u2014 likely including four-time champion Italy \u2014 playing for four places at the tournament next June and July in the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Six teams from outside Europe will play for two entries in the intercontinental playoffs that Mexico is expected to host. Bolivia and New Caledonia have already qualified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>All the playoffs games are scheduled March 26-31.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>The six playoffs slots will be placeholders coming out of the lowest-ranked pot 4 in the World Cup draw on Dec. 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., with U.S. President Donald Trump expected to attend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>FIFA said the playoffs brackets will be seeded using the next men\u2019s world rankings due to be published Nov. 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>The European playoffs will involve four separate brackets of four teams, playing single-game semifinals and finals. Teams enter by finishing runner-up in the 12 qualifying groups, plus four teams that won Nations League groups last year which shape to include Wales and Sweden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>The 12 winners of European qualifying groups that finish Nov. 18, already including England, advance directly to the finals tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>The intercontinental playoffs see the four lowest-ranked teams paired in two single-game semifinals to advance to finals against the two top-ranked teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY FIFA will host draws on Nov. 20 in Zurich for playoff brackets to decide the last six entries at the 48-team 2026 World Cup, the world soccer body said Friday. The European brackets will have 16 teams \u2014 likely including four-time champion Italy \u2014 playing for four places at the tournament [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}