Congratulations to the United States, Canada, and Mexico, who will act as joint hosts of the 2026 World Cup. While Mexico always qualifies for the tournament anyway, this could be huge for the other two hosts. The USMNT missed out on the 2018 World Cup, while Canada has only been to one men’s World Cup, in 1986. Those automatic bids for the hosts will come in handy ...
Wait, so which of the 2026 World Cup’s 3 hosts gets the automatic bid?
It’s still to be determined how the auto-bid will work.
Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
... if they’re given out.
As of the granting of the bid, we still don’t know whether or not the host countries will have to qualify, or if a singular auto-bid will be given out. The United States is hosting 60 of the 80 matches and is most likely to end up not needing to qualify for the tournament, but that’s still yet to be determined. FIFA could make one, two, all three, or none of the teams qualify for the tournament.
That’s likely to be decided at the next FIFA Congress, which will be held on June 5, 2019 in Paris. Until then, all of the hosts will be sweating.
In the event that the hosts are made to go through qualifying, the good news is they’ll have an easier time making the 2026 World Cup than they did the 2018 edition. The World Cup field is set to expand from 32 teams to 48, meaning CONCACAF could have six or more bids available. During the last four World Cup cycles, three teams from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean have qualified automatically, while one team has gone to an inter-confederation playoff.
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