A series of competitive matches in which a national association football team competes for one of the 45 berths available at the final tournament of FIFA’s men’s World Cup. The qualification process is divided into six FIFA continental zones: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North America and the Caribbean), CEE-CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania) and UEFA (Europe).
The number of spots at each World Cup is determined by the number of qualifying rounds a nation must win, with the winners earning automatic berths. In addition to the top-two teams from each of the six qualifying zones, there are two berths from FIFA’s interconfederation play-off system and five places from Nations League, where teams that finish in the top 24 automatically qualify for the World Cup.
During the qualifying stage, each team plays all other teams in its group twice, on home and away legs. The team with the higher aggregate score qualifies. Depending on the match-up, other tie-breakers may be used, including goal difference, head-to-head comparison and away goals.
In the first round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, the four lowest-ranked CONCACAF nations fought it out in a pair of two-legged ties. Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands were eliminated, while Angola progressed to Round 2.
In this round, CONCACAF teams ranked 29 to 32 – with two of them having qualified from the previous round – were drawn into groups of six. The top two in each group advanced to the third round, while the two highest-ranked second-round group runners-up entered a three-legged play-off tie with each other.