In the early morning of February 5, Beijing time, FIFA officially announced the specific schedule of the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup, the distribution of the host city's competitions, and the specific competition system, which will start on June 11 and close on July 19, lasting 40 days, with 48 teams participating in the tournament and a total of 104 games. For the national football team, these are also good news, for example, if you qualify for the next World Cup, the third place in the group can also qualify, including Japan, South Korea, Iran, these World Cup regulars, are also good.
Since the beginning of this century, the World Cup has been 32 teams, and FIFA will start to expand to 48 teams in 2026 in order to expand its influence, so the format will have to be adjusted.
Now FIFA has officially announced the 2026 World Cup format, specifically: 48 participating teams are divided into 12 groups, each group of 4 teams, the top two teams in the 12 groups and the 8 best group thirds, a total of 32 teams to participate in the knockout round.
Compared to the past, only one round of 1/16 finals has been added, and the knockout stage has changed from 4 rounds to 5 rounds, with a total of 104 matches, and the entire tournament lasts for 40 days, which means that the champion and runner-up teams need to play 8 games instead of the original 7.
In fact, FIFA's original plan was to divide the 48 teams into 16 groups, each group of 3 teams, and the top two advanced to the knockout round, and also added a round of 1/16 finals, and the knockout stage changed from 4 rounds to 5 rounds.
However, this plan has been met with a lot of skepticism, because each group of three teams will lead to the emergence of tacit goals, and the teams that will go out of the group will only be able to play two games, which will weaken the participation of the teams participating in the World Cup, and cause the influence and commercial value of the World Cup to be affected.
Now FIFA announced the latest format plan, which is also the most reasonable, to avoid the emergence of more tacit goals, and at the same time, some of the third teams in the group can also qualify, which will add more game highlights and suspense, which is good news for Asian teams that are not very competitive, including Japan, South Korea, and Iran.
In addition, the team that finished third in the group also has a chance to qualify, which is also good news for the Chinese men's football team and boosts their confidence in entering the World Cup. Of course, the national football team needs to play well in the world preliminaries, and at the end of next month, the national football team will play back-to-back games against Singapore, which will determine the prospects of the national football team.