{"id":501620,"date":"2025-10-15T13:57:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501620\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:57:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:57:19","slug":"who-could-england-face-at-the-2026-world-cup-and-when-is-the-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501620\/","title":{"rendered":"Who could England face at the 2026 World Cup and when is the draw?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As has come to be expected, England<\/a> booked their place at a tournament with minimal fuss.<\/p>\n

Victory over Latvia on Tuesday sealed the Three Lions’ spot at next summer’s World Cup<\/a> with time to spare, ensuring next month’s final two qualifiers against Serbia and Albania are little more than early-warm up matches.<\/p>\n

Of the 48 teams who will feature in the United States, Mexico and Canada, 28 have now been confirmed. England are the first team to qualify from Europe.<\/p>\n

That will mean nothing next summer, though, when Thomas Tuchel leads the latest bid for a first major trophy since 1966.<\/p>\n

The World Cup draw will take place on December 5.<\/p>\n

It had initially been expected to be held in Las Vegas, but instead the Kennedy Center – a performing arts venue where Donald Trump is chairman – will host.<\/p>\n

\"Latvia<\/p>\n

Harry Kane scored twice as England thrashed Latvia<\/p>\n

Bradley Collyer\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

The draw is set to get underway at midday local time, which will be 5pm GMT.<\/p>\n

The 48 teams will be split into 12 groups of four, with the top two in each group advancing to the knockout stages along with the eight best third-placed sides.<\/p>\n

England are currently ranked fourth in the world and assuming they stay in the top nine in the final rankings before the draw, they will be in pot one.<\/p>\n

They will be joined in there by the three hosts, United States, Mexico and Canada, along with the other nations at the top of the world rankings.<\/p>\n

Rules state that a maximum of two European teams can be in the same group, while for other confederations it is only one.<\/p>\n

As it stands, the other countries in the top nine of the world rankings are Spain, France, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, Netherlands, Belgium and Croatia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina are defending World Cup champions<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Should that stay the same ahead of the draw, England would not be able to face any of them in the group stage.<\/p>\n

Italy are tenth and so could be drawn with the Three Lions, though they are currently locked in a battle just to qualify. Germany are also potential group-stage opponents.<\/p>\n

Ecuador, Uruguay and Colombia are among the South American contingent to have qualified and would all be tricky tests, while England could also be drawn against any of the African nations.<\/p>\n

Morocco reached the semi-finals in 2022 and are ranked 11th in the world, leaving them as one of the teams those in pot one will be keen to avoid.<\/p>\n

Who has already qualified?<\/p>\n

Africa: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Senegal<\/p>\n

Asia: Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia<\/p>\n

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As has come to be expected, England booked their place at a tournament with minimal fuss. Victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4884,16,15,1514],"class_list":{"0":"post-501620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}