{"id":376647,"date":"2026-04-01T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/376647\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:12:09","slug":"who-has-qualified-for-the-world-cup-and-what-groups-are-they-in-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/376647\/","title":{"rendered":"Who has qualified for the World Cup and what groups are they in? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final 48 teams for the 2026 World Cup<\/a> have been finalised after Uefa and intercontinental playoffs. It was not to be for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, while Italy surprisingly missed out too, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Sweden and Turkey took the final European spots. In the interconfederation playoffs, Iraq beat Bolivia 2-1, while DR Congo beat Jamaica 1-0 to take the final spots in the tournament.<\/p>\n

The distribution of the teams across the continents is nine from Asia, 10 from Africa, six from North America, six from South America, one from Oceania and 16 from Europe.<\/p>\n

The status of Iran is up in the air, their sports minister said they would not take part last month, but the Fifa president Gianni Infantino said on Tuesday that Iran \u201cwill be at the World Cup\u201d and will play their group matches in the United States as scheduled, despite the Middle East war.<\/p>\n

Here are the team that have qualified, sorted by confederation:<\/p>\n

AFC (Asian Confederation):AustraliaIranIraqJapanJordanQatarSaudi ArabiaSouth KoreaUzbekistanCAF (African confederation):AlgeriaCape VerdeDR CongoEgyptGhanaIvory CoastMoroccoSenegalSouth AfricaTunisiaCONCACAF (North American confederation):Canada (co-host)CuracaoHaitiMexico (co-host)PanamaUnited States (co-host)COMMEBOL (South American confederation):ArgentinaBrazilColombiaEcuadorParaguayUruguayOFC (Oceania confederation):Uefa (European confederation):AustriaBelgiumBosnia and HerzegovinaCroatiaCzech RepublicEnglandFranceGermanyNetherlandsNorwayPortugalScotlandSpainTurkeySwedenSwitzerland\"CzechCzech Republic’s forward Tomas Chory and team players celebrate after qualifying for World Cup. Photograph: Michal Cizek\/AFP via Getty The groups for the 2026 World Cup:<\/p>\n

Group A: Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Czech Republic<\/p>\n

Group B: Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar, Switzerland<\/p>\n

Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, Scotland<\/p>\n

Group D: United States, Paraguay, Australia, Turkey<\/p>\n

Group E: Germany, Curacao, Ivory Coast, Ecuador<\/p>\n

Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Tunisia<\/p>\n

Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand<\/p>\n

Group H: Spain, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay<\/p>\n

Group I: France, Senegal, Iraq, Norway<\/p>\n

Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan<\/p>\n

Group K: Portugal, DR Congo, Uzbekistan, Colombia<\/p>\n

Group L: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama<\/p>\n

How do the group stages work?<\/p>\n

The top eight third-placed teams go through to the round of 32, classified by points, then goal difference etc. The group winners will play either third-placed teams or runners-up in groups, with some runners-up playing other runners-up also.<\/p>\n

How long does the tournament go on for?<\/p>\n

The first game is Mexico against South Africa in the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on June 11th. The final takes place at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final 48 teams for the 2026 World Cup have been finalised after Uefa and intercontinental playoffs. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2956,42,43,40,38,41,39,4018],"class_list":{"0":"post-376647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-fifa","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories","15":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}