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The Independent UK

National

Noah Trister

How does the World Cup draw work? The AP explains FIFA's process for dividing teams into groups

Fifa World Cup the World Cup Kennedy Center UEFA Champions League Canada Italy Concacaf the Kennedy Center

World Cup Draw-Kennedy Center Soccer - (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at the Kennedy Center, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.

The 12 round-robin World Cup groups are designated Group A, Group B ... and so on, down to Group L.

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