The 2026 World Cup will be held in the United States, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19. To determine each country’s opponents during the group stage, a draw will take place on Friday, December 5, at 6:00 PM (CET) in Washington, D.C. There will also be playoffs in March, for which the draw will be held this Thursday, November 20, at 1:00 PM. This will be covered live below, with the page updated as soon as possible:
Qualified for the play-offs as runners-up in the European Qualifiers group
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Kosovo, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, Wales
Qualified for the play-offs via the Nations League
Romania, Sweden, Northern Ireland, North Macedonia
Explanation of the play-offs on the FIFA website:
The four additional teams were selected based on the provisional overall ranking of the 2024/25 Nations League, starting with the highest-ranked group winners who neither qualified directly for the final tournament as European Qualifiers group winners nor entered the play-offs as runners-up in their group.
The play-offs are played as single-leg knockout matches. Each play-off path consists of two semi-finals, one between a seeded team and one against an unseeded team: Pot 1 vs. Pot 4 and Pot 2 vs. Pot 3.
The semi-finals will take place on Thursday, March 26, and the finals on Tuesday, March 31, 2026.
The Draw:
Way 1 –
Italy/Northern Ireland
Wales/Bosnia and Herzegovina
Way 2 –
Ukraine/Sweden
Poland/Albania
Way 3 –
Turkey/Romania
Slovakia/Kosovo
Way 4 –
Denmark/North Macedonia
Czech Republic/Ireland
