The 2026 FIFA World Cup schedule is set.
FIFA staged its official tournament draw on Friday, Dec. 5 in Washington, D.C. After an unexpectedly long ceremony featuring musical performances, video montages, comedy skits and extended face time with North American political leaders, the 48 teams of the 2026 World Cup were handed their competitive paths for the tournament.
The World Cup will begin with 12 groups of four teams apiece. Each team will play its group members once — three games per team in total — and receive three points for a win, one point for a draw and zero for a loss. At the end of that process, the top two ranked teams in each group will automatically advance to the knockout phases, and the eight best third-placed teams across the tournament will join them. From there, the tournament will be a simple bracket-style one-game knockout affair through the Round of 32, Round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final.
Those initial groups, then, matter a great deal at the World Cup. An easy group draw can set a team up for a better-than-expected run; a difficult one can doom it to an early exit.
Which teams will enter the 2026 tournament with favorable draws? Which ones are likely to struggle? Here are the World Cup’s biggest winners and losers coming out of the draw process:
