FIFA officially announced!The opening time of the 2026 World Cup has been finalized, and 48 teams will participate in the tournament unprecedentedly, and the national football team will have a show
In two years, the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup will kick off, and international football has officially entered a new World Cup rhythm. Not long ago, FIFA announced the details of the 2026 World Cup, and the mystery of the new World Cup after the expansion was also revealed!
Fans who follow world football should know that starting from 2026, the World Cup will be expanded to 48 teams, so the schedule and format of the competition will usher in a huge adjustment. According to FIFA's announcement, in the 2026 World Cup, the 48 teams will be divided into 12 groups, each group will still be 4 teams, in addition to the top two in each group can successfully qualify, the 8 best group third, can also enter the next knockout round.
The biggest change brought about by the expansion of the World Cup is that a new round of 32 into 16 matches will be added to the original World Cup knockout round of 16 into 8 in the original World Cup knockout format. This means that if a team wants to win the World Cup, the total number of matches they have participated in will increase from the previous 7 to 8, which will increase the difficulty of winning the cup. But for those second- and even third-rate teams in world football, the expansion of the World Cup is certainly good news, as it will greatly increase their chances of progressing from the group without having to go home early after the group stage.
In addition, with the increase of the number of teams, the number of days of the World Cup will also be greatly extended. According to FIFA's announcement, the 2026 World Cup will start on June 11, and the final will be scheduled for July 19, with the whole cycle taking about one month and one week. The opening ceremony of the World Cup was arranged at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, where the host Mexican team will be the first to appear, and the final will be held at the MetLife Stadium in New York, USA.
What Chinese fans are most concerned about is naturally whether the Chinese men's football team can return to the World Cup. After the expansion of the tournament, the number of Asian places has increased from 4.5 to 8.5, in addition to the traditional powerhouses of the AFC, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, other second-rate and even third-rate teams have the opportunity to compete for a ticket to the World Cup. In the latest FIFA rankings, the Chinese men's football team ranks 11th in Asia, although it failed to rank among the top eight, but it is not too far away, so the national football team still has a certain chance to return to the World Cup.
Of course, what the national football team has to do now is to break through from the round of 36 first. In the two games against Singapore in March, we had to beat the opposition twice so that we could seize the initiative to qualify. I hope that this time, the Chinese men's football team can give a strong force and don't disappoint everyone again!