2026 World Cup expands to 48 teams across North America

FIFA’s expanded World Cup had already broken its all-time attendance record by June 25, when the total reached 3,605,357 after that day’s matches. The surge came in the first 48-team edition of the tournament, a 23rd World Cup built around 104 fixtures across Canada, Mexico and the United States, with the competition running from June 11 through July 19.

For newcomers, the key change is the size of the field and the shape of the bracket. FIFA confirmed final squad lists on June 2 for 1,248 players representing 48 nations, giving the tournament a far wider footprint than the 32-team era. The expanded format also adds a Round of 32 before the traditional knockout stages, which means more teams survive past the opening phase and more matches matter before the field narrows.

The tournament calendar has been moving quickly. The July 1 slate included England vs. Congo DR in Atlanta, Georgia, along with other knockout-stage fixtures listed for the first week of July. That made the bracket easier to track than it can first appear: once the opening rounds end, the tournament shifts into direct elimination, and every result sends one side home.

The scale of the event has also revived older football history in places far from the host stadiums. Sheffield, widely promoted as the Home of Football, is described in heritage materials as having played a crucial role in establishing the sport, with Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday tied to that legacy. The city’s football identity offers a useful backdrop for a tournament that now spans three countries and draws on a much larger global audience.

The attendance mark overtook the long-standing benchmark set at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, underscoring how quickly the expanded format has changed the tournament’s reach. With 104 matches on the schedule and 48 national teams in the field, the 2026 World Cup has already reset the scale of soccer’s biggest stage.