To break it down for you: the next men’s UEFA World Cup, the 23rd edition of the global tournament, will take place from June 11 to July 19, 2026, a record 39-day tournament around 18 months from now.
It’s been expanded to 48 teams from 32, and will be hosted across three nations: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 16 of those 48 teams, exactly a third, will be from UEFA, European football’s governing body.
The qualification process for the tournament has already started in some of the confederations (such as South America, as you can see above) but not yet in Europe. Today, teams in Europe find out who will be in their qualifying groups as 54 are whittled down to 16.
And that draw is what we’re covering, right here, right now.