FIFA has released detailed instructions for the final draw, which will be held in Washington, while the schedule of matches – with exact dates and stadiums – will be presented the day after, on Saturday, December 6, according to FIFA’s official website.
By the start of the first World Cup with as many as 48 participants less than 200 days left, and the rules according to which 12 groups of four national teams will be arranged have been confirmed. The draw will take place in the prestigious Kennedy Center, where selectors and leaders of all teams will gather to find out their opponents in the group stage.
The most important news refers to the national teams that will reach the tournament through the playoffs. Everything will be automatically placed in the fourth hat. Thus, the previous possibility was discarded, according to which the winners of the qualifying routes would be classified in stronger hats, depending on the coefficient of the strongest team in that route. For example, the winner of the qualifying round in which Italy would be placed would enter the second hat thanks to the Italian coefficient – but such a solution has been abandoned.
Croatia remains in the second strong group, which means that in the group stage he cannot play against Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia. If FIFA had applied the earlier option, Austria and Australia would have moved to the third hat, and their places would have been taken by the European national teams that passed the qualification paths of Italy and Denmark.
Three hosts – Canada, Mexico and the USA – are preset in the first strength group. The remaining 39 national teams, together with the places reserved for the play-off winners, are arranged in four hats according to the FIFA rankings as of 19 November 2025.
Power groups:
- First group: Canada, Mexico, USA, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany
- Second group: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia
- Third group: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
- Fourth group: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, winners of European play-offs A, B, C and D, winners of Intercontinental play-offs 1 and 2
The draw itself will begin with the drawing of all the teams from the first hat, which will be assigned to groups A – L. The same procedure will then be applied to the other hats, reports Tportal.hr.
Draw Rules and Restrictions Canada, Mexico and the USA will have separate marked balls and will automatically occupy the A1 (Mexico), B1 (Canada) and D1 (USA) slots. The nine remaining national teams from the first hat will be placed in the first position of the group in which they are drawn.
In order to prevent the strongest teams from competing against each other too soon, the four best national teams in the world they will be separated on opposite sides of the lot. Spain (1st) and Argentina (2nd) will be placed in different parts of the table, as well as France (3rd) and England (4th), so these teams can only meet in the final – of course, provided they win their groups.
Restriction also applies to confederations: there may not be more than one national team from the same confederation in the group, except in the case of UEFA which has 16 representatives. Each group must therefore have at least one and at most two European participants.
The schedule of matches and stadiums The draw will determine the pairings in the groups, but not the dates or the stadiums. That part of the schedule will be announced by FIFA a day later, on December 6. When determining the calendar, time zones, logistics and stadium conditions will be taken into account, so that national teams and fans provided the best possible conditions during the tournament.
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