The World Cup qualifiers have evolved with the tournament’s constant reformatting, restructuring and reorganizing, but one thing has remained the same: the competition to lift the most iconic sports trophy in the world.
The race to the 2026 finals has already been a long one for many nations. Unlike previous years, the tournament has 48 teams, and for the first time since 1986 qualifying has expanded from three zones to six groups of five teams competing in a double round-robin. With three of the final spots taken up by co-hosts USA, Canada and Mexico, the remaining nations must now compete for the last two places via an inter-confederation playoff.
All the action kicked off in September and continues on Tuesday, with Japan, Iran, Jordan, South Korea and Uzbekistan all looking to qualify for the next stage of qualifying. The top two teams from each group will earn a place in the World Cup, while the next best teams will make it through to the inter-confederation playoffs.
Each confederation is allowed to design its own format for World Cup qualifiers, and FIFA offers general guidelines on how to proceed. Most tournaments use a double round-robin format, where each team plays the others twice. A tiebreaker is used to determine the winner, which can be based on head-to-head comparisons, goal difference, fair play points or a draw. If there’s still a tie, then a play-off is held on neutral ground and decided by extra time and penalties, if applicable.