Ready for the world’s biggest sporting event? The countdown is on for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spread across the countries (Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.), 48 teams will take part in the largest edition of the tournament ever next summer.<\/p>\n
The qualifying process picks back up in November. Which teams are already in and which ones are close to booking their spot?<\/p>\n
When is the World Cup?<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n The World Cup will run from June 11\u2013July 19, 2026. Spread across three countries, the tournament will culminate with the final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The FOX family of networks and the FOX Sports app are your complete home for World Cup content, including live matches, complete highlights, commentary and analysis, and full-match replays.<\/p>\n What we know:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Who is in (alphabetical order, total World Cup appearances):<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n These teams are in! Who else will join? Listed in alphabetical order:<\/p>\n What to Expect in November From Across the Globe:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asia (AFC) \u2014<\/strong> The six spots are wrapped up with Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and South Korea. Now it’s about which team will book the playoff spot \u2013 UAE or Iraq. Those two teams play each other twice to see who’ll advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n South America (CONMEBOL) \u2014<\/strong> The qualifying rounds are done. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay have booked direct spots. Bolivia secured an intercontinental playoff spot. Chile, Peru, and Venezuela were eliminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n Europe (UEFA) \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>England became the first team to book a spot. Other top teams like Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal are on the cusp of qualifying and should do so during their November matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n North America\/Central America\/Caribbean (CONCACAF) \u2014<\/strong> Aside from the three co-hosts, no one from this region has booked their spot yet. There are 12 teams (split into three groups) playing through November. The three group winners will head directly to the World Cup. Look for teams like Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Honduras to be among the contenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n Africa (CAF)\u00a0\u2014<\/strong> Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia have already clinched their spots. But four teams (Gabon, DR Congo, Cameroon, and Nigeria) will play an additional round in November to see who’ll grab the intercontinental playoff spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oceania (OFA)\u00a0\u2014<\/strong> This is also done and dusted, with\u00a0New Zealand already in and having this confederation’s only direct spot. The tiny island of\u00a0New Caledonia, officially a French overseas territory, still has a shot as a participant in the intercontinental playoff.\u00a0<\/p>\n The intercontinental playoffs, explained:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Ahead of the World Cup, two spots will be clinched in the playoffs that will take place in March 2026. Six teams will participate, with Europe (UEFA) being excluded from this round:<\/p>\n The two teams with the highest FIFA rankings will get byes to the two separate finals. The other four teams will face each other to reach those finalists. The two teams to emerge from this playoff round will go to the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n Region-by-region breakdown:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n AFC (Asia)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams can qualify?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 8 automatically, 1 enters the intercontinental playoff round<\/p>\n Who is in?<\/strong> Who remains in contention?<\/strong> What’s next in November?<\/strong><\/p>\n The qualifying tournament in Asia started back in October 2023 with 46 teams participating. After three rounds of qualifying, six teams have booked World Cup spots, with two more direct spots up (and one playoff berth) up for grabs. Round 4 consisted of six teams (the third- and fourth-placed teams from Round 3), and split into two groups. Those group winners \u2013 Qatar and Saudia Arabia \u2013 advanced to the World Cup.<\/p>\n The Round 4 runners-up play (Iraq and the United Arab Emirates) each other in Round 5 in November with\u00a0the winner then<\/i> heading to the intercontinental playoff in March 2026. They’ll play each other on Nov. 13 and Nov. 18 to see who’ll secure that spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n CAF (Africa)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams can qualify?<\/strong> Who is in?<\/strong> Who remains in contention?<\/strong> What’s next in November?<\/strong><\/p>\n In all, 54 teams (which was reduced to 52) were split into nine groups of six teams each. The nine group winners advanced directly to the World Cup, and the four best second-place teams will enter a playoff round in November (two semifinals and a final). Full final standings can be found here.<\/p>\n In November, the playoff semifinals will be: The winners will then face off on Nov. 18 in order to advance to the intercontinental playoff round in March 2026.<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n CONCACAF (North & Central America and the Caribbean)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams can qualify?<\/strong> Who is in?<\/strong> What’s next in November?<\/strong><\/p>\n The three co-hosts are in, leaving three more automatic spots for the region. There are also two spots for the intercontinental playoff to be determined.\u00a0Initially, 32 teams began the process, with 30 teams \u2013 six groups of five teams \u2013 advancing into the second round of qualification, which concluded in June. The top two teams from each group advanced to Round 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n Round 3 began in September with three groups of four teams, and will conclude in November. The group winners move onto the World Cup, and the two best runners-up get intercontinental playoff spots. Full standings can be found here.<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n CONMEBOL (South America)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams can qualify?<\/strong> Who is in?<\/strong> How did things finish?<\/strong><\/p>\n Six teams from the 10-team region have clinched, with Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador moving onto the World Cup. Uruguay, Paraguay, and Colombia also booked their spots. Bolivia will be heading to the intercontinental playoff. Venezuela, Chile and Peru are officially eliminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n Full final standings can be found here.\u00a0<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n OFC (Oceania)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams have qualified?<\/strong> Who is in?<\/strong> How did it finish?<\/strong><\/p>\n The 11-team qualifying tournament from this region, consisting of countries and territories in the South Pacific, concluded in March. One team emerged from Round 1, joining the seven top-ranked teams of the region. Those eight teams were split into two groups for Round 2, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the semifinals.\u00a0Full final standings can be found here.\u00a0<\/p>\n Semifinals, March 21<\/strong> Final, March 24<\/strong> New Zealand will head to the World Cup, while New Caledonia will be one of the six teams in the intercontinental playoff in March 2026.<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n UEFA (Europe)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n How many World Cup teams can qualify?<\/strong> Who is in?<\/strong> What’s next in November?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are 54 (excluding Russia) teams who began the qualifying process in March. In all, there are 12 groups of either four or five teams each. The winner of each group will clinch World Cup spots.<\/p>\n The 12 runners-up move to a subsequent playoff round, added by the four best-ranked Nations League group winners that did not finish their World Cup qualifying group in first or second place. These 16 teams will then be bracketed to clinch the remaining four World Cup spots in March 2026.<\/p>\n England was the only team to clinch so far, while teams like Portugal, Spain, and France will now wait until November matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n European teams cannot reach the World Cup via the intercontinental playoff. Full current standings can be found here.\u00a0<\/p>\n Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? <\/i>Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily<\/u><\/i>!<\/i> POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Ready for the world’s biggest sporting event? The countdown is on for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.\u00a0 Spread across the countries (Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.), 48 teams will take part in the largest edition of the tournament ever next summer. The qualifying process picks back up in November. Which teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1893","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\/1893","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=1893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Australia, Iran, Jordan, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Qatar<\/p>\n
Iraq, United Arab Emirates<\/p>\n
9 automatically, 1 enters the intercontinental playoff round<\/p>\n
Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia<\/p>\n
Cameroon, Congo DR, Gabon, Nigeria<\/p>\n
Gabon vs. Nigeria (Nov. 13)
Congo DR vs. Cameroon (Nov. 13)<\/p>\n
6 automatically (3 co-hosts, 3 through qualifying), 2 enter the intercontinental playoff round<\/p>\n
Canada, Mexico, United States<\/p>\n
6 automatically, 1 enters the intercontinental playoff round<\/p>\n
Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia (intercontinental playoff)<\/p>\n
1 automatically, 1 enters the intercontinental playoff round<\/p>\n
New Zealand, New Caledonia (intercontinental playoff)<\/p>\n
New Caledonia 3, Tahiti 0
New Zealand 7, Fiji 0<\/p>\n
New Zealand 3, New Caledonia 0<\/p>\n
16 (12 automatically, 4 through a UEFA-only playoff)<\/p>\n
England<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"