How does the World Cup 2026 draw work? New tournament format, changes and rankings explained

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·2 December 2025

How does the World Cup 2026 draw work? New tournament format, changes and rankings explained

Football’s biggest tournament has expanded from 32 teams to 48

The much anticipated 2026 World Cup draw takes place this week.

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Excitement for next summer’s tournament reached a new level when several nations, such as England and France, confirmed their place at the showpiece event during qualification last month.

As things stand, 42 teams have qualified for the 2026 World Cup. Among them will be tournament debutants Jordan, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan and Curacao while Norway and Scotland are back for first time since 1998.

Six more spots are up for grabs. These will be filled by the winners of the UEFA and inter-confederation play-off ties that takes place in March 2026.

Therefore, it will be a waiting game for several other nations with regard to discovering the final team in their respective groups after Friday’s draw is concluded.

With the 2026 World Cup set to be the tournament’s first expansion and format change since 1998, how will the draw work this time around?

Much like for European and domestic cup draws, all 48 teams have been divided into four pots of 12 and one team from each will make up the 12 groups at the 2026 World Cup.

Pot 1 consists of the three host nations - USA, Mexico and Canada along with the top nine teams in the world according to their FIFA men’s ranking for November.

Argentina, the reigning world champions, will be in Pot 1 for the 2026 World Cup draw

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Although, teams taking part in the second round play-off have automatically been assigned to Pot 4 where each matchup has been assigned a position in the draw to avoid any confusion.

For example, the winner of the UEFA Path A play-off group - Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina - will go into whichever World Cup group the UEFA Path A winner is drawn into.

There are a few constraints to the 2026 World Cup draw. Two is the maximum number of European teams that can be paired together in the same group, while teams from Africa, Asia and the Americas can't have another team from their confederation in their group.

Furthermore, none of USA, Mexico or Canada can be drawn with the Concacaf qualifiers, which so far are Haiti, Curacao and Panama.

Interestingly, Spain and Argentina - the top two ranked teams in the world - will be kept apart until the semi-final provided each team wins their respective group.

The same applies to France and England who are ranked third and fourth respectively.