What's new at the 2026 World Cup? Why this year's edition is the Tournament of More

The 2026 World Cup is the tournament of more. The biggest soccer tournament ever begins June 11 in North America and will look a lot different than its predecessors for a whole host of reasons. But is bigger actually better?

We’re about to find out.

More host countries

The World Cup will be played across three countries for the first time in history.

Since its inception in 1930, the tournament has traditionally been held within one country, though two countries have shared hosting duties once before. In 2002, both South Korea and Japan hosted World Cup games.

Though the United States has plenty of infrastructure to host the entire tournament itself like it did in 1994, CONCACAF submitted a joint bid with Canada and Mexico in 2016.

There wasn’t much competition to host the tournament, either. Since the 2018 World Cup was held in Russia and the 2022 tournament was in Qatar, Europe and Asia were ineligible to host the 2026 event. That left Morocco as the lone competing bid against North America’s.

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It was a resounding win for CONCACAF when voting was held. The joint bid received twice as many votes as Morocco’s at the 2018 FIFA Congress.

When Mexico’s game against South Africa in Mexico City kicks off the tournament on June 11, the country will officially become the first to host three World Cups. Mexico first hosted the event in 1970 and then was the host nation 16 years later. While it’s the second World Cup for the United States, Canada’s game against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 12 in Toronto will be the first World Cup game ever played in Canada.

More teams

A big reason why the tournament is so spread out? The 2026 World Cup has grown a lot since 2022 and is twice as large as it was when the U.S. hosted in 1994.

The 32-team tournament is now 48, as many more countries got the opportunity to qualify for the event. Teams like Jordan, Uzbekistan, Curacao and Cape Verde are making their first World Cup appearances, while Scotland and Norway are back in the World Cup for the first time since 1998 and Haiti is making its first appearance since 1974.

The World Cup has steadily grown since 13 teams took part in the first tournament in Uruguay in 1930. It expanded to 16 teams in 1934, though the 1938 tournament featured just 15 teams as Austria had become part of Germany and the 1950 tournament had just 13 teams after three backed out.

In 1982, the World Cup expanded to 24 teams and was that size for the 1994 World Cup in the United States. It expanded to 32 teams four years later.

More teams means more games and more money for FIFA, so the 48-team World Cup is here to stay. It’s not going to go back to 32 teams for 2030 or 2034. And don’t rule out the tournament getting bigger in the distant future, either.

More knockout round games

In the 32-team World Cup format, the process to make the knockout rounds was pretty simple. Group play featured eight groups of four teams and the top two teams in each group made the 16-team knockout stage.

But as the tournament has grown by 16 teams, the size of the knockout round has doubled to 32. Overall, the tournament will feature 104 games. In 2022, there were 64 World Cup games.

There are now 12 groups of four teams and each team will continue to play at least three games. The top two teams from each group will still advance, but the final eight spots in the Round of 32 will be filled out by the top eight third-place teams among the 12 groups.

That means it’ll be harder for a team like Germany to miss the knockout rounds like it did in 2022. The Germans finished third to Japan and Spain in Group E, but had four points and a positive goal differential. That type of performance should be more than enough to get through to the knockout rounds in 2026.

With third-place teams getting into the knockout stages and goal differential being a key tiebreaker for those final eight spots in the Round of 32, expect goal prevention to be even more of a priority for teams in group play, especially among smaller nations. While the talent gap between the best and worst teams at this year’s World Cup is considerably larger, more teams having a shot at qualifying for the knockout rounds may lead to more conservative game plans.

More breaks

It’s likely going to be very hot and humid at many World Cup host stadiums. After all, the tournament is being played during the summer.

But even though five stadiums have full or retractable roofs over their fields, every World Cup game will feature multiple scheduled hydration breaks for players.

It’s an unprecedented move for a sport that prides itself on continuous action in each half. In December, FIFA announced that each half would have a three-minute break to “prioritize player welfare.” Each break will come 22 minutes into the half.

Hydration breaks aren’t a new thing; they’ve been regularly used in games played in extreme heat. But the move to schedule the breaks for games that could be played in cooler weather or are being played indoors is unprecedented.

And it also gives Fox and other broadcast partners around the world the opportunity to play more commercials. In March, FIFA said that networks would be able to go to commercial during the stoppages as long as they begin 20 seconds after the break is called and end 30 seconds before the break is over. That gives networks approximately two minutes for ads and the opportunity for additional eight 30-second commercials during each game.

More VAR

The hydration breaks will be far from the only stoppages during World Cup games, either. While the 2026 World Cup isn’t the first for Video Assisted Replay, officials will have the ability to replay review even more aspects of games than they did four years ago.

In addition to plays like potential handballs along with possible red cards and penalty kicks, replay officials will now be able to check if a call for a corner or goal kick is correct provided that the mistake is “clear and obvious.” Of course, what “clear and obvious” is in the soccer world is a contentious debate and something with a fluid definition. You’re going to hear that phrase a lot during the World Cup and by the end of the tournament you may even find yourself questioning what it actually means.

Match officials can also now be called to the monitor to assess the validity of a second yellow card given to a player. Remember, two yellow cards in the same game leads to an automatic ejection and a team playing with 10 players for the rest of the game.