The NEW 2026 World Cup Format EXPLAINED! 

Hey Tac, can you provide a link for the change? I haven't found anything on the FIFA website.

bullshit this is not the real format, 12 groups with 4 teams in each.

Now we can add "inside information" to the reasons to follow Tactical Manager!

Bullshit having teams getting through as 3rd by beeing compared with teams who had complety different opponents and constellations within the group. Group A has a clear disadavantage compared to Group L. Just unfair. Why am I the only one seeing that. ?

@@superman-rz3vw That's far fairer than having a 3-team group, my friend! Just check what happened to Algeria in 1982.

I like that idea better than 8 third place teams

this is exactly what I was thinking, 8 teams get a "bye"

I still think this is better, as it gives more chances

It also gives incentive to come out on top

Isn't it 32 in the knockout?

catenaccio dignified..

I hope for the first round of knockouts they do pot draws like the Champion's League. Like the first pot is the top 8 and they draw against a pot of the 8 third place teams. Then 9-12 group winners draw against 21-24 lower ranked 2nd place teams and 13-20 second place teams draw against each other within the same pot. So each team that qualifies for the round of 32 will be ranked 1-32 based on points, goal difference, goals scored, goals conceded, fair play, and then finally FIFA rankings if necessary. That way there is incentive to perform well in the group stage and promote inter-group competition. So teams will not just be competing within their group, but also fight for ranking with teams in other groups. And they should be distributed evenly on both sides of the knockout table based on the performance in the tournament so you dont't get 6 top 8 teams on one side of the table and only 2 top 8 teams on the other side.

Why wouldn't final group match reolicate in 48 team format . I mean i am very confused here byt they go with 12 group with 4 ream wouldn't it be same like 2022 ? Same thrill ?

@@natoslayer2907 it will make easy to score goals for top team, And to become world cup top goal scores is easy which till 2006 is so hard,

Letting 8 3rd placed teams based on comoarions throughout completely differant opponents and groups is not much better

Can u explain how it happened at the expense of Algeria? What needed to happen for Algeria to make it thru?

@@sepulvjl Germany and Austria knew exactly what result was needed to ensure them both to advance. Germany scored an early 1-0 against Austria. Afterwards both teams just Stopped playing, just passed the Ball around.

@@sepulvjl algeria had already played their Last match

I did a fantasy world cup and this is what i mostly did in the continental qualifiers lol. Although in real life, I feel like it is such a hassle if there are two group stages for a tournament. This will also bring the total number of matches to be played by the final two teams into 10 which is too tiring for the players. But hey, no format is perfect.

mate thats really strange

I hope too cuz i want our country czech to play in something major lol

@@doglix3259 the Czech Republic always qualifies for the Euro but not the World Cup

Yay very great letting teams through who finished 3rd: - group stage would be boring just as the Euros - how stupid is it to compare teams who had complety different opponents and constellations within in their groups?! - Teams in Group L have a CLEAR Advantage compared to teams in group A, knowing exactly what result is needed to Top the teams who already played their 3rd match - how stupid is that? You just shift the Problem you had with 16×3 within the groups to the same Problems you have to 12×4 by comparing groups Just bullshit, got it?

No lol

@@captainfalconmain6576 yes lol

@@luckymark571no

@@luckymark571that is way to many games 3rd place teams making it don’t feel it used to be like that was 24 teams not 48 tho

@Captainfalconmain65 Who cares? It will allow lower level teams to participate that will likely never do it again in history again this change is just for this cycle if you don't like it then don't watch it 🤷‍♂️

Fair. Why haven’t I seen such idea brought up?

@@huykim4663 because most people are terrible at figuring out tournament formats? I've been organizing tournament structures for a national sporting organization (USA Ultimate) for the last 22 years so I have a lot of experience with tournaments of roughly this length.

Because the knockout is against another group you still have an incentive to get to 2nd place and you have an earlier comparison with another group. But goals scored in a 2nd vs. 3rd place should not fall into the statistics or else the golden boot, might be easier to win if you are not first place! On the other hand, it's also more likely to get a match ban because of the extra cards you receive... That would mean that it is easier than ever to get into the knockouts, it means a total of 3 matches for a group and an extra Group-knockout-match. This would mean 16 groups x 3 Matches + 16 Group-Knockout-matches = 64 Matches compared to the 72 matches if there are 6 matches in 12 groups. And would it bring closer to 48 Matches as it was in previous worldcups. I think this version could be interesting!

I was going for a crazy big tournament: "If you make 8 groups out of 48, you would have 6 in each group! You let the first 4 teams go through for the last 32. To get the best possible last of 16, you could pair a first place with a fourth place and a second place with a third place for the last 32! So you would have to play 5 matches in the Group stage, and 5 in the knockout stages, making it a total of 10 Matches for a title. There would also be 3 matches simultaneously played at the end of the group matches, making it even more dramatic. This of course increases the risk of injury, so you would need a bigger squat and more substitutes. Another way to ensure physical fitness would be to reduce the playtime for the group stages to two halves of 30 minutes and increase it for the knock-out stages, which obviously will have backlash, but it could be fun and interesting, and older or weaker players could perform better in the group stages! This would mean instead of 270mins played in 3 Matches you would have 300mins played in 5 Matches. You could also have 2 matches simultaneously from the beginning and 3 at the end of the group stage, this way you could have 6 matches a night. That would mean you have 3 days' rest in between matches. And you have 120 matches played in 20 nights and the last 32 matches in 20-21 nights (4-5 rest days). So a total length of 40-41 nights!"

If there were only four remaining winners plus the runners up, there would only be sixteen teams in the round of 32. im guessing what you mean is that the reamining sixteen would play knockouts and then the winners will play against the seeded top 8, which I like haha

8 groups of 6 is the only option that I like of all the possibilities. I would remove the intermediate step though, and have only the top 2 teams in each group pass to the next round, although I don't specially dislike that idea either. 3 teams per group won't make for a very good group stage, and having the "best" thirds advance is terrible imo. It would be ok-ish if there were only 1 or 2 teams advancing this way, but you have 8 out of 12, that's not the "best" thirds, that's the majority of them. The only issues I see with 6 teams per group is that it adds 2 extra games, and that it kind of makes the groups a bit less unpredictable, as it makes it easier for more powerful nations to recover from a bad game.

@@alpuzza I like 8 groups of 6 but the only problem is the number of matches. Its 120 matches just for groups alone.

@@Mattz342 I know, but the alternatives seem even worse to me, and I can see FIFA taking an option with more games (therefore more money) over one with less. Personally I would have preferred the format to stay as it was, 32 teams was perfect (regarding the format, I don't think more teams is bad just because there are more teams). The other only option I see to have a "good" format is to actually increase it to 64 teams instead of 48, which I guess is where we'll be headed in a couple editions.

@@alpuzza but you cant just jump from 32 to 64. This is why you need this 48 team format for maybe the next 3 or 4 world cups.

It's good and FIFA have done that before. The problem is the amount of time to finish the competition.

Like portugal winning euro cup in 2016,

I was going to say the same thing about West Germany and Austria from 1982. I watched the same day one hour condensed version with Toby Charles as the commentator. He captured the moment perfectly in regards to how shambolic it was.

Not only that. USA, together with Canada and Mexico will be in pot 1, so they will avoid Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Spain, etc.

I do think that could be an effective format in some ways, such as lack of collusion/fixing (assuming that the final three (of fifteen) matches are played simultaneously). However, the reason that I cannot see that being chosen for a world cup would be the length. That is because you would have 136 matches altogether, and it would be most efficient to have at least three games on a time during group and early knockout stages. But during the semi-finals, you cannot have three matches on, so it would take (in my opinion) about two months to complete. Overall, if it was three matches on at a time during group stage, and five days being required for each group, you would get 40 days of group stages, unless they do six matches, three from two different groups), and then it would take almost three more weeks for the knockout stage. While it would work if the world cup acted as a full-scale season (as opposed to a tournament), it wouldn't work as intended. groups of six could still work for a smaller tournament though.

I’ve been advocating this too, another thing they could have is 1st reach the last 16 and then 2nd play 3rd in an additional knock out game, more teams reach the knockouts and have a chance in the group stage but at the very least 8 groups of 6 seems better

Except they are ruining the format and the game just for money and it’s not like they are gonna donate all the money to the poorer non-host nations.

Not managable in this shortage of time and boring matches with teams who are already out.

@@superman-rz3vw You are absolutely correct. That is obviously another major problem with groups of 6 is that under groups of 4, teams can already be mathematically bound to elimination before their last group match, and groups of 6 could make that problem worse

The 3rd place teams playing each other would only get you to 30 teams for the knockout stage (6 winners from 3rd place games).

That is a legitimate concern, but it has to be considered in context. FIFA has expanded the WC to enable more countries - especially from outside Europe - to have a realistic chance of qualifying and - in exchange for the worthy policy - we have to accept some not exactly perfect features in the WC final competition format.

Yes same Problem. Hence, new Format is still shit.

It's the same algorithm they used in 86/90/94, and it did work. All 8 qualified 3rds go against eight preselected 1sts, with a predetermined choosing order so every 1st always play a 3rd from a different group. The other 4 1st play 2nds, and the remaining 4 matches are 2nd vs 2nd.

@@JCCyC letting the 3rds through is just bullshit, how can it be fair to compare teams who had complety different opponents?! And btw A Team in group L would know exactly what result is needed to secure a spot for the last 32 (by getting through as 3rd and topping a Team from group A e.g.)

@@JCCyC and way too many games

40 vs. 48 doesn't really solve anything. Groups of 5 means two more rounds of group play, with one team getting a bye each round in each group. And you actually get the same potential for final round collision that you do in a group of 3, since there is an idle team in the last round. If you're going to do that, you may as well go to 48 with groups of 6. Still takes 5 rounds of group play (same as groups of 5 with 40 teams) but now all teams in the group can play simultaneously in the last round. I'm not sure they really want to add another 2 games and ~10 days to the event, but that would actually be a good format.

@@doktarr That is a good point, but it is slightly harder to fix matches in, because two matches are still played simultaneously. It still leaves the door open to a guaranteed elimination for the team not playing in the final round, because the managers will know how many points their team will need at minimum to guarantee elimination for the idle team.

although this would be fun, the number of game would go from 76 to 135 rather than the 88 proposed meaning the tournament is then too long to be played in a summer break between seasons

Your comment makes no sense

That wouldn't divide properly since it is 48 teams

it’s called world cup not world lesgue

More games = more $$$ from the broadcasting rights

Bullshit comparing teams who had differant opponents

Way too many group stages matches but why not try at least

i think the reason they don’t do this let’s say a undogs wins it and they embarrass themselves an the actual tournament that’s why they don’t do it mostly likely

😭😭😭😭😭

They won't. There is zero value of beating American Samoa 31-0. On top of that they are good enough to qualify in Asia with that many spots. Their biggest problem is that they have been mediocre for years and now they could easily qualify being mediocre. So, they don't have any incentives to improve. P.S. On the side note, without Australia OFC shouldn't even exist. FIFA should force these guys to merge with Asia.

@@ivanpetrov5185 OFC existing and getting a spot is a scam. That said, many of the small island nations might find it very difficult to afford flying to Syria every second game. The crazy distances involved do make it seem a bit impractical to merge them.

@@adavidavis2762 You are well aware the AFC qualifications are on geographical principle, don't you? There is no way the OFC nations fly to Syria. The whole Middle East and Iran will be closed to them. They will fly to Australia, Japan, both Koreas and the likes. Which is still a lot of travel, but not even close.

@@ivanpetrov5185 The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers literally had Guam and Syria in the same group...

@@adavidavis2762 just regionalize the early qualifying rounds as its slim chance any of the island teams will ever get out of those early rounds anyway. Have Australia move back to Oceania but have the OFC as still part of Asia tournaments and qualifying where only the top two teams in Oceania move on to qualifying and playing tournaments within Asia.

I initially liked it, but realized it’s just a more complicated version of the 16x3 model. The issues with 16x3 is losing teams only play two matches and match fixing. This system fixes neither issue and adds an extra step for knockout rounds.

@@carloswalter8320 Oh wow, thank you for reading and analyzing my comments, I have forgotten about it if you did not reply. Well, I think Match Fixing is solved, since from example above, #2 and #3 have no real advantages for getting a draw results, since it's affected their result in Group 2nd Round. And they certainly are not advancing if they can't beat #1. So collusion during initial round are not benefitable enough to be considered. About losing teams only play 2 matches, we really can't minimize overall matches for a team need to win World Cup trophy and increasing average matches played for all teams, and also minimize the overall number of matches played for whole World Cup tournament. With 48 teams: *8 Group of 6 teams (*8x6), every team played each other; - Min number of a team to played = 5 matches, - Max number of a team to played = 9 matches, - Overall number of matches = 120 (Group) + 8 (R16) + 4 (QF) + 2 (SF) + 1 (Final) = 135 matches. *Current format, 16 Group of 3 teams (*16x3), every team played each other; - Min number of a team to played = 2 matches, - Max number of a team to played = 7 matches, - Overall number of matches = 48 (Group) + 16 (R32) + 8 (R16) + 4 (QF) + 2 (SF) + 1 (Final) = 79 matches. *12 Group of 4 teams (*12x4), every team played each other, 32 teams advancing; - Min number of a team to played = 3 matches, - Max number of a team to played = 8 matches, - Overall number of matches = 72 (Group) + 16 (R32) + 8 (R16) + 4 (QF) + 2 (SF) + 1 (Final) = 103 matches. *My suggestion, 8 Group of 2 Subs of 3 teams (*8x2x3), 16 teams advancing; - Min number of a team to played = 2 matches, - Max number of a team to played = 8 matches, - Overall number of matches = 48 (subgroup) + 32 (group 2nd R) + 8 (R16) + 4 (QF) + 2 (SF) + 1 (Final) = 95 matches. **The host favored the overall number of matches to be small, so from option above, they wanted *16x3, and my option, *8x2x3 will be #2 priority. **The team preferred less matches to play until final to avoid potential injury, so they prioritize *16x3, so *12x4 and *8x2x3 will be #2 priority. **The fans wants more fair and straight rule for advancing, so *8x6 will be #1, but have too many matches for the host. *16x3 will be #2, but collusion can and have happened. *12x4 have straight advancement for top 2 teams, but next 8 teams will be chosen from 3rd Place 8 Best Teams, which means matches outside of the group affected the advancement. *8x2x3, my option, will favor teams that wins every group match without relying on other matches result. (any 2 teams that win every matches will certainly advancing to R16). Collusion is less benefitable since any drop of points is very dangerous gamble.

its possible that groups could be more localized to certain cities specifically, but it should not be hard to determine KO rounds for brackets, its basically The Euros now or the WC in 94 just twice as big.

@@Lonestarr022 in Euro’s case, it’s 4 out of 6. For the new World Cup, it’s 8 out of 12. Both have two-thirds advancing, but the difference in numbers of combinations is huge (15 to 495).

You guys can qualfy if you get lucky you guys will mostly like be an pot 3 England Denmark yes Denmark are gonna be an pot 2 😂 so your group is England Denmark Ireland and lative 😂

Each group consisting of 5 teams still paves way to collusion as there’s one team not playing in the last matchday.

Too many matches to handle even for these countries, a group of 6 requires 15 matches to complete Do the math, and the amount of matches would more than double the amount in the current format (15*8) + 32 = 152

Didn’t Saudi Arabia beat Argentina?