World Cup draw explained: Everything you need to know about the big event

The path to glory will be plotted Friday as the 2026 World Cup draw sets the stage for the biggest men’s sporting event in the world.

The 2026 World Cup draw, slated for noon ET from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., will determine the makeup of the tournament’s 12 four-team groups for next summer’s tournament, set to take place at 16 venues across the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Like the selection shows for the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, this is when you can start plotting your favorite team’s course through the tournament. However, get ready for (literally) hundreds of possible permutations for the final bracket for what will be the biggest World Cup ever.

The 2026 men’s World Cup will run from June 11 to July 19. Here’s everything you need to know about how the 2026 World Cup draw will work.

2026 World Cup Draw explained

The 48 nations will be drawn into four groups of 12, with the draw weighted by FIFA rankings to ensure evenly matched groups and prevent too many nations from the same region being drawn together.

How to watch the World Cup Draw

The World Cup draw will be broadcast live in the U.S. at noon ET on FOX (English) and Telemundo (Spanish). It will be available on streaming via Fox One (English) and Peacock (Spanish).

World Cup format

This will be the largest World Cup yet, with the tournament expanding from 32 to 48 nations. The number of matches will increase from 64 to 104. This will also be the first World Cup co-hosted by three nations, with matches played across North America.

The 48 teams will be divided into 12 groups of four; the top two in each group advance — as well as the eight best third-place teams — to a Round of 32, where a single-game knockout round begins.

Friday’s World Cup draw will divvy up the qualified nations into their respective groups, which will in turn help map each team’s path to the final. But it won’t be completely random. Exact venues and kickoff times will be unveiled on Saturday.

Who is in the World Cup?

The World Cup will be made up of 48 nations from around the world, including the host nations U.S., Mexico and Canada. World Cup qualifying whittles down the field from 206 teams. Among the qualified nations are 16 from Europe, nine from Africa, eight from Asia, six from Concacaf (North America, Central America and the Caribbean), six from South America and one from Oceania. Two more qualifiers have yet to be determined.

World Cup draw pots

To ensure balanced groups for the group stage, FIFA used its own rankings to place every qualified team into four pots (see below for the full pots). FIFA’s world rankings are calculated by a formula based on recent results, weighted by level and type of competition.

The three automatic qualifiers — host nations U.S., Mexico and Canada — were placed in Pot 1, alongside the nine best teams in the rankings. The 12 next best-ranked qualified nations are in Pot 2, followed by the next 12 in Pot 3. Pot 4 has the bottom six teams based on FIFA rankings as well as six placeholder spots for playoff winners.

Wait, World Cup qualifying isn’t over?

Despite the fact the World Cup draw is Friday, qualification for the tournament is ongoing. Four teams from Europe and two more from other confederations have yet to be determined.

UEFA, Europe’s soccer governing body, still has 16 teams fighting for four remaining spots in the World Cup. Those nations, which include some traditional heavyweights like Italy and Sweden plus some underdogs like Northern Ireland and Kosovo, will play sets of semifinals and finals on March 26 and 31. The winners of the four mini-tournaments will be placed into predetermined groups based on Friday’s draw.

Two more nations will qualify via inter-confederation playoffs to be held in Mexico, also on March 26 and 31. Those mini-tournaments will feature three-team playoffs where two seeded teams play the winners of two matches between unseeded teams. (See below for more information on these teams.)

How the World Cup draw works

Now that we’ve got the who, what, where and when out of the way, let’s get to the how.

The World Cup draw will be similar to past tournaments with a few exceptions. Each team’s name is placed into a ball that is placed into its respective pot to be drawn at random by a celebrity on a stage watched by millions of ravenous fans.

The three host nations have already been placed in specific groups to ensure they play their group-stage matches on home soil. They will have their own specifically colored balls — Mexico in green, Canada in red and U.S. in blue — for quick placement into their predetermined groups.

From there, teams will be randomly selected from Pot 1 and placed into the remaining nine groups. The draw will then proceed to Pot 2, where teams will be placed into each of the 12 groups, followed by Pots 3 and 4.

There are a few rules that must be followed while placing teams in their respective groups, primarily that two teams from the same confederation (continent, essentially) cannot be drawn into the same group. However, because there are 16 teams qualified from Europe, there may be up to two teams from Europe drawn into the same group. This will also apply to the four European teams not yet qualified. The inter-confederation playoff placeholders will similarly be blocked from placement into a group that breaks this rule. Every group must have at least one team from Europe.

Teams from Pot 1 will all be placed in Group Position 1 of their respective groups. The remaining teams will be placed into group positions based on a predetermined table to provide variety on match days (for example, this ensures the Pot 1 and Pot 2 teams are not playing on the same days in every group).

There is a new wrinkle to mention in which FIFA takes a page out of the tennis playbook. For the first time, FIFA decided to create separate pathways to ensure the four highest-ranked teams do not face each other until the semifinals, assuming they win their respective groups. What this means is that when the two best-ranked nations — Spain and Argentina — are drawn, they will be placed in groups whose winners will enter the bracket on opposite sides. Similarly, the third- and fourth-ranked teams (France and England, respectively) will be placed on opposite sides of the bracket and in different quadrants from the top two teams.

The knockout bracket will be filled in by the winners, runners-up and eight third-place teams in predetermined spots based on groups. However, there are 495 possibilities for which eight groups advance teams into the knockout stages, meaning the full bracket will not be determined until the final group stage is completed.

What else can we expect at the draw?

Friday’s draw will feature a number of celebrities and sports stars of all kinds.

Andrea Bocelli, Nicole Scherzinger, Robbie Williams and even the Village People will be performing. Heidi Klum and Kevin Hart will co-host the draw, while soccer legend Rio Ferdinand and broadcaster Samantha Johnson conduct the draw. North American sports stars will be heavily involved in the draw, with Eli Manning on the red carpet and Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Aaron Judge and Shaquille O’Neal assisting in the draw.

When will we know kickoff times?

Though schedule dates will be set as soon as teams are drawn into their groups, the full list of exact kickoff times and venues will be released Saturday in a separate event. This delay will allow FIFA to tailor locations and times to participating countries.

Saturday’s event will begin at noon ET, exactly 24 hours after the draw begins, and can be streamed on FIFA.com.

What’s the best-case/worst-case scenario for the U.S.?

As a host nation, the U.S. men’s national team is placed in Pot 1. This means the Americans will not have to worry about drawing one of the sport’s best teams in the group stage, as heavyweights like Argentina, Spain, France, England and Brazil are also in Pot 1. However, there is still plenty of room for variability in group difficulty.

When it comes to potential Pot 2 foes, teams like Croatia, Morocco and Colombia represent the toughest matchups, while Norway — with Manchester City star striker Erling Haaland — is a team no one will want to draw out of Pot 3. The U.S. will hope to avoid drawing the winner of the UEFA Playoff Path A, from which Italy, ranked 12th in the world, is the favorite to win.

Based on FIFA rankings and regional restrictions, the hardest group the U.S. could be drawn into would be Morocco (11), Norway (29) and Italy (12).

The easiest group for the USMNT would be Australia (26), South Africa (61) and New Zealand (86).

World Cup Draw pots

Below are the four pots, with FIFA rankings in parentheses.

Pot 1

• Canada (27)
• Mexico (15)
• United States (14)
• Spain (1)
• Argentina (2)
• France (3)
• England (4)
• Brazil (5)
• Portugal (6)
• Netherlands (7)
• Belgium (8)
• Germany (9)

Pot 2

• Croatia (10)
• Morocco (11)
• Colombia (13)
• Uruguay (16)
• Switzerland (17)
• Japan (18)
• Senegal (19)
• Iran (20)
• South Korea (22)
• Ecuador (23)
• Austria (24)
• Australia (26)

Pot 3

• Norway (29)
• Panama (30)
• Egypt (34)
• Algeria (35)
• Scotland (36)
• Paraguay (39)
• Tunisia (40)
• Ivory Coast (42)
• Uzbekistan (50)
• Qatar (51)
• Saudi Arabia (60)
• South Africa (61)

Pot 4

• Jordan (66)
• Cape Verde (68)
• Ghana (72)
• Curaçao (82)
• Haiti (84)
• New Zealand (86)
• UEFA Playoff Path A
• UEFA Playoff Path B
• UEFA Playoff Path C
• UEFA Playoff Path D
• Intercontinental Playoff Path 1
• Intercontinental Playoff Path 2

The following teams are still alive via the playoffs:

• UEFA Playoff Path A: Italy (12), Wales (32), Bosnia and Herzegovina (71), Northern Ireland (69)
• UEFA Playoff Path B: Ukraine (28), Poland (31), Albania (63), Sweden (43)
• UEFA Playoff Path C: Turkey (25), Slovakia (45), Kosovo (80), Romania (47)
• UEFA Playoff Path D: Denmark (21), Czechia (44), Ireland (59), North Macedonia (69)
• Intercontinental Playoff Path 1: Congo (56), Jamaica (70), New Caledonia (149)
• Intercontinental Playoff Path 2: Iraq (58), Bolivia (76), Suriname (123)