TIL: The 2026 WC will be the first with 48 teams

The 2026 FIFA World Cup expands from 32 to 48 teams — a 50% increase and the biggest format change since 1998 when the tournament went from 24 to 32.

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Tournament size over time:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1930-1938    13-16 teams
1950-1994    16-24 teams
1998-2022    32 teams       ████████
2026+        48 teams       ████████████
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+50% more teams  |  104 matches  |  39 days

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The new format features 12 groups of 4 instead of 8 groups of 4. The top two from each group plus the 8 best third-placed teams advance to a 32-team knockout round. Total matches jump from 64 to 104.

{{callout type="tip"}} This means more nations get their first-ever World Cup appearance. Countries like Indonesia, who last qualified in 1938 (as the Dutch East Indies), could return after an 88-year absence. {{/callout}}

Source: FIFA 2026 Format