2026 Fifa World Cup: 48-team line-up complete
Africa will have 10 representatives at the Fifa World Cup for the first time in the competition’s history after two-time Afcon champions DR Congo defeated Jamaica 1-0 in their inter-continental play-off in Mexico on Tuesday night to book a place in the quadrennial football show.
This will be the first World Cup appearance for the Congolese since 1974, equalling the third-longest gap between successive World Cup appearances.
Haiti also qualified for the 2026 Fifa World Cup after a 52-year wait.
This year’s World Cup – to be jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States from 11 June to 19 July – will feature a record 48 teams.
Iraq, returning to the World Cup since their first appearance in 1986, completed that bumper line-up after defeating Bolivia 2-1 in their inter-continental play-off encounter on Tuesday night in Mexico.
Iraq’s winning goal, scored by Aymen Hussein, was the 2,527th scored during the qualifiers, which featured 899 matches played across Fifa’s six confederations.
In the European play-offs, Bosnia and Herzegovina ended a 12-year absence from the World Cup following their first appearance in 2014 after defeating four-time winners Italy 4-1 on post-match penalties. The match had ended 1-1 after extra time, and the result saw the Azzurri fail to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.
The Czech Republic, Sweden, and Turkey were the other teams to qualify from the European play-offs. The Swedes did so in the most bizarre ways.
They finished bottom of their qualifying group with zero wins but qualified for the play-offs through the Uefa Nations League. They defeated Poland 3-2 to book their place, with Arsenal striker Viktor Gyokeres scoring a late winner.
While Sweden’s last appearance was in 2018, the Czech Republic and Turkey will feature at the World Cup for the first time since 2006 and 2002, respectively.
Following their qualification, DR Congo will join Group K, which also has Colombia, Portugal, and Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan, known as the White Wolves, will be one of the four debutants at this year’s World Cup.
The others are Cabo Verde, Curacao, and Jordan.
Curacao, with a population of 155,000 people and a land area of 444 square kilometres, will make history as the smallest country to appear at the World Cup.
Cabo Verde, after Curacao and Iceland, is the third smallest country to qualify for the World Cup.
The 2026 Fifa World Cup will feature 26 countries that appeared at the last World Cup in Qatar.
Cameroon and Nigeria are some of the biggest names from Africa that will miss the global football show.
Costa Rica and the European trio of Denmark, Poland, and Wales also failed to qualify.
The expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams will see the introduction of a round of 32 in the knock-out stages. The top two teams in each of the 12 groups and the eight best third-placed teams will progress to the knock-out stages.
This year’s World Cup will feature 104 matches, up from 64 played in Qatar four years ago, and will be played over 39 days.
The seven previous 32-team World Cups were played between 29 and 33 days.
Matches will take place across 16 cities – 11 in the United States, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.
The opening match will be played on June 11 at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium.
It will feature co-hosts Mexico and South Africa, marking the first time in the history of the World Cup that two countries have met in the competition’s opening match twice.
The two nations met in the opening match of the 2010 World Cup held in South Africa.
That match was also played on June 11.
The final will take place on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, United States. (Reuters)
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