World Cup 2026 draw: start time, pots, who England can face in group and route to the final

The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place on Friday at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC – and after the usual pomp, circumstance and questionable musical interludes, England, Scotland and the other 46 competing countries will find out who stands between them and the World Cup trophy next summer.

With the tournament now expanded from 32 teams, the draw for the 2026 edition of football’s greatest competition looks a little different – so how will it work and who could England or Scotland be drawn against?

What time is the 2026 World Cup draw?

The draw is scheduled to kick off at 17:00 GMT – mid-day on the American east coast – but FIFA will likely draw proceedings out somewhat. This will not be a short ceremony.

As well as the inevitable speeches and the likely introduction of a slew of famous former players to draw the teams out of their pots, there will also be entertainment from Robbie Williams and the Village People (yes, seriously) and the award of FIFA’s brand new peace prize, which is expected to create yet more controversy for Gianni Infantino’s presidency.

Although the winner has not yet been announced, most observers expect it to be handed to US President Donald Trump. That would usually be a contentious enough decision in its own right, but it hasn’t helped matters that the man chosen to chair the committee awarding the prize, Mynamar football federation president Zaw Zaw, has previously been the subject of US sanctions due to his role in a violent military junta which ruled the country for several years.

Still, once the politics are done with and the YMCA has drawn to a close, some football-related events will take place. So how will the brand new 48-team draw actually work?

How does the World Cup draw work?

With more teams than ever before, there will now be 12 groups in the first round of the tournament instead of the more usual eight – with each group sending two teams directly to a new round of 32 alongside the eight best-performing third-placed teams.

To create the 12 groups, the 48 competing nations have been divided into four pots of 12. The three host nations – Canada, the United States and Mexico – are in Pot 1, alongside the nine highest-placed nations in the current FIFA world rankings, which includes England.

Pots 2-4 are also ordered by world ranking, with Scotland (currently ranked 36th) in Pot 3. Complicating matters is the fact that there are still six qualifying spots yet to be filled – four more sides will qualify from the European play-offs in March, along with two from the intercontinental pathway.

These six teams will be placed in Pot 4, with the teams pre-assigned to compete for a specific slot – that means that if Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland make it through next spring, they’ll know who they will be drawn against in advance.

Who is in each pot for the draw?

Here are the four pots and the teams who can be drawn from each of them on Friday:

• Pot 1: Canada, United States, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.
• Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia.
• Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.
• Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haïti, New Zealand, 4 European play-off qualifiers, 2 Intercontinental play-off qualifiers.

Four of the confirmed participants are preparing to make their World Cup debut – Uzbekistan in pot three, and Jordan, Cape Verde and Curaçao in pot four, with the latter becoming the smallest team ever to qualify for the finals. Perhaps the most notable absentee is Italy. The three-time world champions are in the European play-offs and will be in pot four if they qualify, which could easily be the way we get 2026’s version of the traditional Group of Death.

Who could England get in their group?

All of the teams from Pot 1 will be assigned first to a group – A through L – then all of the teams from Pot 2 and so on, but there are restrictions on which countries can be drawn against each other.

No more than two teams from UEFA can be drawn into the same group, and no more than one from any other confederation. If a team is drawn into a group which would break those limits, then they will be automatically moved along to the next eligible group in the draw.

There are no political restrictions on which teams can face each other, unlike in some of the qualifying competitions. So, for instance, the United States could easily be drawn against a politically-opposed nation such as Iran.

Another difference in this year’s draw is that FIFA will not be drawing each team’s ‘position’ in the group, which previously determined the order in which games were played. This time, the order of matches in each group is pre-determined, which should at least speed things up and provide more time for speeches.

England, Scotland and the other competitors will also know who they might face in later rounds, with the knock-out bracket also pre-set – for example, the winner of Group F will face the runner-up from Group C and so on.

A new wrinkle, however, is that the top four teams in the tournament according to the world rankings (Spain, Argentina, France and England) will also be seeded for the knock-out stages and thus can’t face each other until the semi-finals – but they will only get that seeding if they win their group.

The seeds are also ‘paired’ meaning that England and France - and Spain and Argentina - will be on opposite sides of the draw, so that England can’t face France until the final, and could only face Spain or Argentina in the semis. That all falls apart if any of the teams don’t win their group, however, making this an especially confusing addition to proceedings.

Either way, England will be hoping to avoid tougher opponents such as Croatia, Uruguay or Morocco from Pot 2, or perhaps Erling Haaland’s free-scoring Norway in Pot 3 – but the potential for a truly dangerous group is reduced significantly by the addition of four new groups, a move which dilutes the quality of each pot to some degree. Scotland, meanwhile, will surely be crossing their fingers that they draw one of the host nations instead of a European or South American powerhouse.