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The World Cup 2026<\/a> is now just days away with Fifa\u2019s giant 48-team tournament<\/a> ready for kick-off.<\/p>\n With the final squads being named<\/a>, teams will now prepare for their first group stage games in the USA, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n Excitement is building and history will be made, as players carve out their own legacies to join some of the greatest footballers in Fifa World Cup history<\/a>. <\/p>\n There will be 104 matches, up 40 since Qatar World Cup 2022, while Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo likely to play on this stage for the last time in their glittering careers.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how the tournament will unfold across 39 action-packed days:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n World Cup 2026 groups<\/p>\n Group A: Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Czech RepublicGroup B: Canada, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Qatar, SwitzerlandGroup C: Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, ScotlandGroup D: United States, Paraguay, Australia, TurkeyGroup E: Germany, Curacao, Ivory Coast, EcuadorGroup F: Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, TunisiaGroup G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New ZealandGroup H: Spain, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, UruguayGroup I: France, Senegal, Iraq, NorwayGroup J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, JordanGroup K: Portugal, Congo DR, Uzbekistan, ColombiaGroup L<\/a>: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The World Cup will begin in Mexico City\u2019s Azteca Stadium, the site of Diego Maradona\u2019s most famous and infamous goals<\/a> against England<\/a> at the 1986 World Cup. <\/p>\n It was also the venue for two classic World Cup finals: Brazil\u2019s win over Italy in 1970 which included Carlos Alberto\u2019s iconic team goal to cap a 4-1 win; and Argentina\u2019s 3-2 win over West Germany in 1986, where Jorge Burruchaga grabbed an 84th-minute winner.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Mexico and Canada will host 13 games in each, and the United States will host 78. <\/p>\n From the quarter-finals onwards, the US will host all of the remaining matches, with the final in New Jersey\u2019s MetLife Stadium.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n What are the World Cup 2026 dates?<\/p>\n The tournament begins in Mexico on 11 June, and concludes with the final in New Jersey on 19 July. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-699842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}