A World Cup that will have more hosts and teams than ever

The 2026 World Cup, once a dot on the horizon, starts to come into full view this week. With qualification now mostly wrapped up, the draw for the tournament is Friday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

The World Cup, held once every four years, pits the best men’s national soccer teams against one another in a tournament that is more than a month long. In the lead-up to the draw for the event, we answer some of the big questions you may have.

How big is the World Cup?

FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, puts the number of people who watched the previous edition in 2022 on television at 2.7 billion — and the number who engaged with the tournament across all media at almost double that.

Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, likes to compare the World Cup to 104 Super Bowls. That line exaggerates the appeal of some of the low-wattage early contests among the 104 matches, but you can see what he’s getting at. This is the very definition of a big-ticket event.

Where is the 2026 World Cup being held?

It’s a joint enterprise among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The United States has the most games (78) and host cities (11), as well as sole responsibility for the quarterfinals, semifinals, third-place play-off, and final. Canada and Mexico will each put on 13 matches, including three in the knockout rounds.

When does it start?

The tournament begins June 11, when Mexico plays … well, we’ll find that part out in Friday’s draw. The group stage runs until June 27, after which it is the guaranteed drama of win-or-go-home soccer.

How long does it last?

The final is July 19. So that’s 39 days, with matches on all but five of them. A marathon and a sprint, in other words.

How many teams compete?

From 1998 through 2022, 32 teams competed. But for 2026, FIFA has expanded the tournament to 48 nations.

Didn’t the US host the men’s World Cup before?

Yes, in 1994. It was pitched as a coming-out party for soccer in the US, which at that point did not have a professional domestic league. The tournament was widely regarded as a success, with strong attendance throughout. The United States made it out of a tricky group in dramatic circumstances before succumbing to the eventual winner, Brazil.

Doesn’t it usually take place in one country?

Historically, yes. Only one of the first 22 editions had more than one host. That was the 2002 World Cup, which took place in Japan and South Korea.

Now, though? We appear to be entering a new era. Next summer’s North American three-way will be followed by an even more splintered edition in 2030: Spain, Portugal, and Morocco are the official joint hosts, but there will also be three matches in South America to kick off the tournament. That is a way to commemorate the World Cup’s centenary, with the first tournament in 1930 having been staged in Uruguay. It also means that there will be games on three continents. Carbon footprint? Never heard of it.

Which countries will be there next summer?

Forty-two teams have qualified. The list includes a lot of soccer’s usual suspects but also some newcomers, including Uzbekistan, Jordan, Cape Verde and Curaçao.

Any notable countries missing?

In short: no. There are no absolute soccer giants that will definitely not be at the tournament. India and China are the most significant by population size, but they are not traditional soccer powerhouses. Indeed, eight of the 10 most populous nations have not qualified.

Still, the picture remains blurry at this stage, because six qualifying spots remain up for grabs. Two of them will go to the winners of an intercontinental playoff tournament that takes place in Mexico in March.

Four more European teams will also qualify, with 16 teams still scrapping to progress. The biggest name in there is Italy, which has won the World Cup four times but risks missing out for the third edition in a row.

How does the draw work?

The 48 competing countries will be split into 12 groups of four for the group stages.

Before the draw, teams will be seeded and divided into four pots based on their FIFA rankings. The three host countries will join the highest-ranked FIFA teams in Pot 1.

Teams will be randomly drawn from each pot and assigned to one of the 12 groups. However, teams from the same confederation cannot meet — except for those in UEFA. There can be up to two European teams per group.

With the first game of the 2026 World Cup taking place at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on June 11, Mexico has automatically been assigned to Group A.

Canada will play the second match, in Toronto on June 12, so it is in Group B. The United States, which is playing the third match, in Los Angeles, also on June 12, will be in Group D.

So they do the draw, but we won’t know all of the matches?

This started in 2022; previously, FIFA waited until qualifying was wrapped up before cracking on. It means that Friday’s big revelations will not have quite the air of finality that they might; the list of groups is going to have more blank spaces and question marks than an exam paper.

Once the tournament starts, how does it work?

There will be 12 groups of four teams, as decided (albeit not conclusively) by the draw. Each group is its own little single round-robin league, with every team playing the other three once.

At the end of it all, the top two sides in each section qualify for the second round. Since 1998 in the World Cup, 16 teams advanced. Now, with the expansion, FIFA has added a whole extra set of games in the knockout phase, the round of 32.

That means two things. One is that the two teams that eventually make the final will play eight World Cup games, where previously they would have had seven. The consequences of that inflation remain to be determined. The second is that eight teams that finish third in their groups will progress to the knockout stages, too.

There will be a ranking of the 12 third-placed sides, based on points won in their three matches and then on a hierarchy of tiebreakers. And then, depending on which groups they are from, the top eight of the 12 will be inserted into the round-of-32 fixtures. There are, apparently, 495 possible combinations.

So what’s the issue here?

For one thing, the ambiguity — not knowing whether a given result will be enough to secure progress until all matches are complete — favors the groups that play their third and final matches last. Two teams that know they would both go through if their match ended in a draw might play differently if that question was still open.

Then there is the question of arbitrariness. In the old system, the reward for winning a group was a knockout match against a team that had not won its group. In the 48-team tournament, some group winners will play runners-up, like before, but others will face third-place finishers.

What teams are the favorites?

The consensus is that it’s quite an open field.

Spain is certainly a front-runner. It was crowned champion of Europe in 2024 and has maintained momentum over the 18 months since, playing a technical, measured brand of soccer that suits the rhythms of a big tournament. Plus, in teenage winger Lamine Yamal, Spain has a player who can settle big matches single-handedly.

Few teams can match the firepower and depth of France, the World Cup winner in 2018 and runner-up four years later. Its campaign will have a valedictory tone to it — coach Didier Deschamps, in place since 2012, will stand down when it is complete.

With doubts about the reigning champion, Argentina (a questionable defense, a star player in Lionel Messi who will turn 39 during the tournament), and the World Cup perennial Brazil (no fullbacks, a new coach in Carlo Ancelotti with little preparation time), the third favorite might be England. Perfect in qualifying and led by coach Thomas Tuchel, the English will not be anyone’s idea of a pushover.

You said this World Cup is bigger than any before. Is there anything else new for 2026?

The whole rhythm of the tournament is going to be different this time. Adding 16 teams to the mix increases the number of games from 64 in 2022 to 104. The usual pattern of three group matches a day to start the group stage is no more; we’re looking at four a day from June 13 to 23.

That will take some getting used to, as will the relative scarcity of rest days. There is no pause between the group stage and the round of 32, which then flows directly into the round of 16, again with no respite. Players, of course, can still rest between games.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.