World Cup 2026: where, when and how the next World Cup will be played, with Argentina defending the title of champion

The most anxious fans will already be thinking about the next World Cup. This event, the most important in the world of baseball, will be co-organized by United States, Mexico and Canada in 2026 and its main novelty will be a significant increase in the number of selected participants.

Although there are still no details on the start and end dates of the event, there is one certainty: the World Cup It will take place again between June and July, during the break between seasons in much of the planet. The experience of a year-end championship, like the one played Qatarit will be archived, at least for now.

The tripartite candidacy, which beat Morocco’s by 134 votes to 65 in the vote that took place during the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow on June 13, 2018, has a clear first among equals: United States of Americawhich will organize its second World Cup (it had already done so in 1994) and on whose soil 11 of the 16 cities chosen as venues are located.

Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and New Jersey are the US cities where the tournament games will be held. Mexico, which previously hosted in 1970 and 1986, will host matches in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Vancouver and Toronto will be the places where soccer will be in Canada, which will host a men’s World Cup for the first time (it organized the women’s one in 2015).

In this championship on North American soil, the big news will be the number of selected players who will give as a gift: there will be 48, which will mark a new increase. Until Argentina 1978 there were 16 teams involved, with the exception of Uruguay 1930 and Brazil 1950 (13). From Spain 1982 to USA 1994, 24 teams competed. And from France 1998 to Qatar 2022 there were 32.

From this increase in the number of participants, the total number of games to be played would also increase, from 64 to 80. All this potentially because the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, warned in a recent conference that the format that this new version of the World Cup will have has not been defined.

In a first sketch, he had thought of putting together a group stage with 16 zones of three teams, and the best two of each would advance to the instance of the straight duels, which would begin in the round of 16. From there, the idea is for teams to eliminate each other in a single match until the champion is defined. With this mode, the team that lifts the Cup would play a total of seven matches, as happened in the last World Cup.

However, days ago, Infantino acknowledged the need to discuss the structure of the new competition. “We are always open to improving, we have to see what’s better,” he said in a conference. The other option would be to have 12 zones of four teams.

Having selected the passage from 32 to 48, FIFA also had to carve out a new scheme for the distribution of places by confederation. They all received an extra, although the most favored was the African Football Confederation, which until 2022 had five seats and from 2026 will have nine direct seats, plus a team that will play in an intercontinental play-off.

Europe will drop from 13 to 16 teams, while Asia will move up from three to six direct places, as well as having a place in an intercontinental playoff. Oceania, which until now had no direct odds, will get one and also keep the vacant spot in a playoff for another of their select teams.

For Conmebol there will be six direct tickets plus one for repechage, so seven of its 10 members will be able to participate in a World Cup at the same time. This alternative awakens the illusions of Venezuela, the only South American team that has never played in a World Cup and which, led by José Pekerman, will try to make history when the qualifiers begin, presumably at the end of 2023.

Concacaf, for its part, will have six direct places and two in the playoffs. Although it has not yet been made official, it is expected that in 2026 the three places reserved for hosts will be deducted from those six direct places.

A few days have passed since the 2022 World Cup and Argentina has been able to crown the dream postponed to 36 years of shouting “champion”. It’s time to have fun but also to project what’s to come, with a coach like Lionel Scaloni who will certainly renew his continuity at the helm of the team and a squad that has already had a strong renewal and will go to North America with the experience of what has been made in the Middle East. The huge question lies in issue 10, will Lionel Messi change his mind and indulge in a sixth World Cup adventure?