2026 World Cup: How Nations From Around The world Can Qualify

BY DALE JOHNSON, GENERAL EDITOR, ESPN FC

Qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup began on Oct. 12, 2023, when minor nations from the Asian confederation played their first round of matches. Myanmar's Lwin Moe Aung scored the very first goal in a 5-1 win over Macau.

Most confederations now have qualifying well underway, but we're a long way from discovering who will join hosts United States, Mexico and Canada.

Here's where we're at around the globe.

EUROPE(UEFA)

12 AUTO + 4 VIA CONFEDERATION PLAYOFF

There are 55 European nations, and qualifying will run from March to November 2025. However, Russia remain suspended due to the invasion of Ukraine and are unlikely to compete, leaving 54 nations.

There will be 12 groups of four or five teams, playing home and away matches. The group winners will qualify directly for the World Cup.

There is no date for the draw as yet, but it's likely to be in November or December. The seeded teams will be the top eight nations from the current edition of the UEFA Nations League, which ends on Nov. 19, plus the top four by FIFA World Ranking who aren't yet seeded. Despite being in Nations League B, England are almost certain to be in Pot 1 on World Ranking.

The final four places at the World Cup will be determined via confederation playoffs, to be played in March 2026. There is no path to the World Cup through FIFA's intercontinental playoffs.

The UEFA playoff involves 16 teams: the 12 runners-up plus the four best-ranked group winners from the UEFA Nations League, who did not finish in the top two in World Cup qualifying. This creates four routes, each with four teams featuring a semifinal and a final for a place at the World Cup.

SOUTH AMERICA (CONMEBOL)

6 AUTO + 1 ENTERS PLAYOFF

As in recent qualifying competitions, all 10 nations play each other home and away. The top six nations qualify directly to the finals. The seventh-placed team will go into the intercontinental playoffs in March 2026.

The first qualifiers took place in September 2023, with the league phase to be completed in September 2025.

NORTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA , CARIBBEAN (CONCACAF)

3 AUTO + 2 ENTER PLAYOFF

Usually, Concacaf would have six automatic places in qualifying -- but for the 2026 finals three of the six are taken up by the hosts. That leaves three places to be won, plus two spots in the intercontinental playoffs.

Concacaf saw 32 nations enter the race to make the finals.

Round 1: The four lowest-ranked Concacaf nations battled it out in two-legged ties. Anguilla and British Virgin Islands eliminated Turks and Caicos Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands respectively, both on penalties.

Round 2: The top 28-ranked nations, plus the two winners from Round 1, were drawn into six groups of five teams. The six group winners and six group runners-up will move on to Round 3. This stage will be played in two blocks, with the first held in June 2024 and the second in June 2025.

Round 3: The 12 remaining teams will be drawn into three groups of four teams. The group winners will qualify for the World Cup, with the two runners-up with the best record going on to take part in the intercontinental playoffs. This phase will be played in September, October and November 2025.

AFRICA (CAF)

9 AUTO + 1 ENTERS PLAYOFF

There were 54 FIFA-affiliated nations in the draw, but Eritrea subsequently withdrew.

Round 1: The 53 teams are in eight groups of six nations, and one group of five. The nine group winners qualify for the World Cup,

This stage began in November 2023 and will be completed in October 2025.

Round 2: The four best runners-up will enter playoffs (two semifinals and a final) to decide which one country will go to the intercontinental playoffs. This stage will be played in November 2025.

ASIA (AFC)

8 AUTO + 1 ENTERS PLAYOFF

This is by some distance the most complicated route to the World Cup, with a layered qualifying process which creates a dual group stage to find the eight automatic qualifiers.

Round 1: The 20 lowest-ranked nations played two-legged ties in October 2023. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore and Yemen advanced.

Round 2: Those 10 winners joined the 26 best-ranked nations. The 36 teams were drawn into nine groups of four teams, with the top two nations going through to Round 3. This stage began in November 2023 and was completed in June 2024.

Advanced: Australia, Bahrain, China, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan

Round 3: We're now left with 18 nations, who have been drawn into three groups of six teams. Matches began in September 2024 and will run through to June 2025

The group winners and runners-up will take the first six places at the 2026 World Cup.

The six nations who finished in third and fourth move on to round 4.

Round 4: The six teams in this stage will be drawn into two groups of three. They will play each other once, so two matches, on neutral ground in October 2025.

The group winners take the final two automatic places at the World Cup.

The runners-up continue on to Round 5.

Round 5: The two runners-up will play a two-legged tie in November 2025 to earn the place in the intercontinental playoffs.

OCEANIA (OFC)

1 AUTO + 1 ENTERS PLAYOFF

All 11 members of the OFC region take part.

Round 1: The four lowest-ranked nations play a knockout format (two semis and a final) in September 2024 for a place in round two. The games will be played in Samoa.

American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga are in this round.

Samoa beat Tonga 2-1 in the final to move on to Round 2.

Round 2: Samoa join the seven top-ranked nations.

The eight nations have been drawn into two groups of four nations, with matches played in October and November 2024. Games will be held in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

Group A: Solomon Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea
Group B: New Zealand, Tahiti, Vanuatu and Samoa

The top two countries in each group go on to Round 3.

Round 3: Four countries remain, and will play a knockout format (two semis and a final) in March 2025.

The winners of the final qualifies for the World Cup, with the losers playing in the intercontinental playoff.

INTERCONTINENTAL PLAYOFFS (2 PLACES)

The playoffs, to be held in March 2026, will determine the final two qualifiers.

Six countries will take part. Each of the five confederations (apart from UEFA) will have one country in the playoffs. The host confederation (so for this edition Concacaf) receives a second slot.

1 Africa
1 Asia
2 Concacaf
1 Oceania
1 South America

The two nations with the best FIFA World Ranking will be seeded and go straight into one of the two finals.

The four other countries will be drawn to play a semifinal, feeding through to play a seed for one of the two places at the World Cup.

The playoffs are due to be held in one of the World Cup host nations as a test event.

WNBA Star, NBA Analyst Chiney Ogwumike On Tireless Quest To Have It All

Chiney Ogwumike's trade from Connecticut to Los Angeles has allowed her to contribute more frequently to ESPN’s NBA coverage from the network’s L.A. studio. (Will Navarro for The Washington Post)

BY BEN GOLLIVER

LOS ANGELES (WASHINGTON POST) — The elevator ride to Chiney Ogwumike’s Century City penthouse began in silence and ended with the steady thump of Afrobeats.

It was a random Tuesday afternoon, but Ogwumike was moving and talking faster than the music, whirling around a condominium that is a monument to multitasking. In a downstairs gym, Ogwumike has prepared for her upcoming season with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. Upstairs, the baller-slash-broadcaster has arranged her office around a tidy bookshelf that serves as a backdrop for remote television appearances.

Her phone was always nearby and rarely dormant, and she mumbled verdicts on a stream of incoming requests without losing her train of thought. Ogwumike stepped onto her deck to enjoy the sunshine, but only for a moment. There was too much to discuss about her dual careers, not to mention her secret dream of chronicling the Hollywood dating scene.

“People think when you’re on TV that all these guys are going to be talking to you,” she said. “I go on TV, tell people what I want them to know and come home to eat Chipotle and watch my shows. I love African music — Burna Boy, Wizkid, Fireboy — so I go to small functions, but you won’t see me out here turning up. Dating in L.A. is traumatic. Dating in L.A. is comedy. I wish I could do an anonymous podcast about dating in L.A.”

For the next two hours, Ogwumike held court from her couch, shifting effortlessly and inexhaustibly through an array of more serious topics: her painful rehabilitations from two major surgeries; her exhausting rise to become an NBA analyst for ESPN; the petroleum industry; gender inequities in sports; sexism in broadcasting; the Ukrainian refugee crisis; and social media criticism.

With a gleaming smile and active hands, she noted twice that her brain never turns off and chalked it up to her full legal name: Chinenye Joy Ogwumike. Her first name means “God gives” in the Igbo language. The joy is self-evident. Her last name translates to “Tireless.” Together, it’s as fitting as a name gets.

Ogwumike, who turned 30 on March 21, is in contract years with both the Sparks and ESPN. Between the age milestone and the career crossroads, she was in an introspective mood, and had listened intently to Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearings. Jackson recalled feelings of homesickness and doubt as a Harvard undergraduate, and told a story about a sidewalk encounter with “a Black woman I didn’t know,” who apparently sensed Jackson’s uneasiness and provided a single word of advice: “persevere.”

The anecdote reminded Ogwumike of her own freshman year at Stanford, when she felt like an outsider and couldn’t bring herself to participate in class discussions, even though she was a star recruit and a straight-A high school student.

In stepped Condoleezza Rice, who joined the Stanford faculty after serving as George W. Bush’s secretary of state. Summoning Ogwumike for a heart-to-heart conversation, Rice insisted that the teenager speak up and informed her that she would be requesting regular progress reports from her professors.

“Dr. Rice let me know that you can go as hard in the classroom as you go on the court,” Ogwumike said. “You don’t have to sacrifice academics to be great at basketball. A switch flipped in my head and it changed my perspective on everything. That experience made me think maybe I could be a broadcaster or an entrepreneur. I can do both at the same time.”

Evading quicksand

Peter and Ifeyinwa “Ify” Ogwumike were born in Nigeria and raised by well-to-do families before immigrating to the United States as teenagers to study at Weber State and settling just outside Houston. They expected perfect test scores and community involvement from their four daughters: Nneka, Chiney, Erica and Olivia. All four went on to play college basketball, and the sport was a driving force for the family.

But Ogwumike, a 6-foot-3 forward who won two state championships at Cy-Fair High School, was also active in student government and a civil rights club in high school. Even as a young child, she enjoyed watching CNN’s global news and eavesdropping on her parents’ conversations about African politics.

While at Stanford, Ogwumike majored in international relations and studied abroad in her parents’ home country, where she saw both ends of the economic spectrum. One day, she was job-shadowing officials at the Ministry of Petroleum. The next, she was attending Access2Success basketball camps, where hundreds of children, many of whom lacked shoes and proper athletic attire, squeezed onto two outdoor courts. She returned to Palo Alto with a newfound gratitude, and graduated as the Pac-12 conference’s all-time leading scorer.

Two years after Nneka was the No. 1 pick in the 2012 WNBA draft, Ogwumike was selected first overall by the Connecticut Sun and appeared poised for a dominant professional career. Unfortunately, injuries intervened. While Nneka led the Sparks to the 2016 title and was named league MVP, Ogwumike endured nagging knee pain and underwent microfracture surgery in 2015.

Ogwumike went home to Texas to recover, shielding her disappointment from the outside world. Laid up on a couch in her parents’ bedroom, she refused prescription pain medication after her first Vicodin pill made her nauseous.

“Negativity is like quicksand,” Ogwumike said. “Going from being a superhero athletically to not being able to move or walk or take care of yourself completely was a foreign experience. I purposefully chose for people not to see that side.”

Once healthy, Ogwumike returned to play for the Sun and competed overseas in China. While playing for the Henan Phoenix in 2016, she tore her Achilles’ tendon. To get back to the United States for surgery, Ogwumike embarked on a 72-hour journey that included a train ride across the Hunan province, two lengthy flights and wheelchair rides through multiple airports.

“Technically, this is going to be her ninth season, but she’s only played in like five,” Nneka said. “Her personal challenges have to do with injuries and she handles it with such grace.”

Ogwumike spent her second rehabilitation watching ESPN’s morning debate shows, seeking a connection to the sports world. She remained confident that she could still compete in the WNBA but decided that playing year-round was no longer an option, leading her to consider joining the media.

“The Achilles’ injury was really the first time that she had time to think,” said Allison Galer of Disrupt The Game, Ogwumike’s longtime agent. “We spent a lot of time brainstorming and strategizing. Where are we going and how are we going to get there?”

Starting over

Despite her elite basketball pedigree, Ogwumike was an unproven 25-year old broadcasting rookie. She had dabbled with a few ESPN appearances since joining the Sun, but pitching herself to media executives as an on-air talent during her playing career was more complicated. She prioritized opportunity over compensation by channeling Shonda Rimes’ “Year of Yes” philosophy.

Want to interview college mascots? Yes. Want to analyze Pac-12 games in the studio? Yes. Want to anchor SportsCenter Africa? Yes. Ogwumike, who is now a regular on ESPN’s “NBA Today” show, knew she needed to raise her profile because she wasn’t a household name like Lisa Leslie or Candace Parker.

“People are like, ‘Why is she on TV so much?’” Ogwumike said. “I’m not the MVP or a champion. My story is different. I know what it’s like to be looked past and judged. When you’re a Hall of Famer, you’ve always got a spot. They need you. I don’t have that luxury. I have to fight for my spot.”

Before long, she had constructed a frenzied day-to-day existence in Uncasville, Conn., where the Sun play. Three or four times a week, she would wake up at 4:30 a.m. and drive an hour to ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, arriving early enough to attend production meetings and get her hair and makeup done before her first SportsCenter hit at 7 a.m. Her appearances would continue throughout the day, and she would sneak in a quick cafeteria lunch when possible.

Ogwumike would head out by 4:30 p.m. to work out, make the hour-long drive home and tune into the first set of NBA games at 7 p.m. When the games were done after midnight, she would log plays and send notes to her producers for use on the next day’s shows.

“These are things people do to follow their dreams,” Nneka said. “I don’t know how she does it, and it couldn’t be me.”

Meanwhile, at her night job, Ogwumike averaged 14.4 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Sun, earning her second all-star nod in 2018. Yet she felt stuck in an endless loop, apart from her family, living in team housing and driving a team-owned Hummer.

“I was a single woman in Connecticut by myself with no friends, really,” she said. “My lifestyle wasn’t sustainable at all.”

As her ESPN responsibilities increased, Ogwumike experienced a heavy dose of impostor syndrome, much like when she was a Stanford freshman. Former Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady, her childhood idol, was now sitting next to her on set, and she felt added pressure following the departures of several high-profile female hosts. Network executives took note of her diligence and professionalism, but some colleagues struggled to pronounce her name and viewers nitpicked her appearance.

“A woman with a microphone can’t mess up, and you get the magnifying glass for your mistakes,” she said. “I would go from practice straight to on-air, filling in for someone who dropped out and doesn’t care about this job. I’m so excited to hustle and prove that my perspective matters, and all society wants to talk about is that I didn’t look good. I’m used to the smoke. Someone that tweets me hate isn’t comfortable with a Black woman on your screen. Alright, next.”

The Twitter critics were one thing, but Ogwumike was hard on herself, too. Worn down by her hectic schedule but feeling too guilty to take a real vacation, she coped by hibernating at home with Netflix. To ease her mind before appearances, Ogwumike, a Catholic, began reciting the Serenity Prayer and the Angel of God Prayer. Eventually, she settled in and trusted that she would hold her spot through preparation and persistence.

“There are quicker ways to [get attention],” Ogwumike said. “Some people hot-take it, but we’re not afforded that luxury as women. Even if I wanted to, are we comfortable with women yelling?”

Rounding out

A 2019 trade from the Sun to the Sparks reunited Ogwumike with her sister, Nneka, and enabled her to contribute more frequently to ESPN’s NBA coverage from the network’s L.A. studio. The cross-country move also prompted an unsparing self-assessment.

“I’ve never had a personal life,” she realized. “In high school, I was focused on my grades and being the No. 1 player. At Stanford, I needed to be the best player in the country and get this degree. In the pros, I had to prove that I was good because my sister is hooping. When’s my life happening?”

Ogwumike now has a checklist for her next 10 years: marriage, children and launching a media business that will combat systemic inequality through narrative storytelling. Her off-court causes have piled up: In addition to serving as a vice president for the WNBA’s players union, she has spearheaded voting rights initiatives, campaigned for more equitable treatment for women collegiate athletes and launched a fundraiser for African students fleeing the war in Ukraine.

“I wouldn’t be surprised one day if Chiney is a U.S. Senator or President of the United States,” said Dave Roberts, ESPN’s head of NBA and studio production. “She’s one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked with in this industry.”

A potential political future will need to wait. After playing just seven games over the past two seasons, Ogwumike has trained for the upcoming season with 5 a.m. workouts and regular sessions with a basketball coach, osteopath, track coach and trainer. Retirement would have its benefits — less physical toll on her body, more time for everything else — but she isn’t ready.

“I want to prove that I can still play,” she said. “I know I still have gas in the tank.”

Something will have to give. The WNBA season begins in May, leaving Ogwumike unsure about her availability to cover the NBA Finals in June. Sparks Coach Derek Fisher said that he was “optimistic” that Ogwumike “will report to camp healthy and contribute to our on-court success,” adding that the team has “always supported our athletes pursuing careers” outside the WNBA. Roberts said that ESPN’s leaders will be “flexible and nimble” to make the juggling act work.

As Ogwumike ramps up for another basketball comeback and builds her broadcasting reputation, she recited one of her mother’s favorite sayings: small drops of water make a mighty ocean.

“You’re told that you have to give your all to one thing to be great,” Ogwumike said. “That’s not how the world works right now. We have one nationally-televised game as the Sparks. I’m fortunate to be on TV three or four times a week. There are young girls that want a voice and an opportunity, and that visibility goes so far.”

A lot of good can happen, then, if she just keeps talking.

Swimmer's Death Casts Light On Campus Sex Assaults

In this photo provided by Mike Menu is his daughter, Sasha Menu Courey, with teammates. The Canadian family of former University of Missouri school swimmer says the school and its athletics department failed to properly investigate her alleged off-campus rape by as many as three football players in 2010. Menu Courey struggled with mental illness and committed suicide 16 months later.

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The case of a former University of Missouri swimmer who said she was raped in an episode that her parents say led to her suicide underscores the problems higher education institutions in the U.S. face in cracking down on sexual assaults.

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The parents of Sasha Menu Courey say the university and its athletics department by now should have investigated her alleged off-campus rape by as many as three football players in February 2010. University leaders say they didn't learn about the purported attack until after Menu Courey, a Canadian, committed suicide 16 months later. They also said they followed the letter of the law because they didn't have specific knowledge of the attack and no victim to interview.

Schools nationwide are spending more time and money fighting campus rape in response to stricter federal enforcement of gender discrimination laws under Title IX. The White House has called it a public health epidemic, and President Barack Obama last week announced the formation of a new task force on college sex assault, citing statistics that show 1 in 5 female students are assaulted while in college, but only 1 in 8 victims report attacks.

But balancing the needs of individual students — including those who report attacks but don't want a criminal investigation — with protecting the larger community is vexing for many schools. Colleges and universities are also required to report campus crimes to the federal government under a 1990 law known as the Clery Act.

At least 50 schools have bolstered their efforts in recent years. Complaints of Title IX violations related to sexual violence are also increasing, a sign Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, attributes to new vigilance on campus.

"Obviously, there are all too many that still need prompting," she said. Earlier this week, Lhamon's department announced an investigation of Penn State University's handling of sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints amid the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. The University of Colorado and California State University-Fresno have been ordered by civil courts to pay millions for Title IX violations asserted in victim lawsuits.

The University of Missouri's efforts to reduce sexual violence on campus are extensive. A campus equity office led by a lawyer oversees compliance with Title IX, the federal law more commonly known for ensuring equal participation by women in college sports but also has broader discrimination protections. There also is counseling and help available through the campus women's center and the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center.

Students who eschew legal intervention can still seek a campus disciplinary hearing. And the university can also help students switch dorms or class schedules or bar contact outright. Menu Courey, 20, killed herself in June 2011 in a Boston psychiatric hospital soon after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and two months after an earlier suicide attempt.

"There are many resources out there, but there's not really any (sense) that she was provided with those resources," said Zachary Wilson, development director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. "It's difficult for sexual assault survivors to go at it alone."

Missouri didn't immediately investigate the death of Menu Courey, who by then had withdrawn from classes at the university's urging and lost her financial aid. The school said in a statement Tuesday that a 2012 Columbia Daily Tribune article about Menu Courey's suicide briefly alluded to the alleged assault, but didn't meet the legal standard that the school "reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment."

The school says Menu Courey's parents ignored its request for more information a year ago after it discovered an online chat transcript with a campus rape counselor in which Menu Courey mentioned an earlier attack.

Missouri initially responded to an ESPN story about the swimmer by defending its handling of the case while criticizing the news organization's "skewed and flawed reporting." But soon after, the university said it was turning over information on the case to Columbia police, since the alleged attack happened off-campus.

A police investigation is underway, and University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe wants the university's governing board to pay for an independent legal review of how officials handled the situation. The Board of Curators is expected to consider that request at its regular meeting on Wednesday.

Other sexual assault cases have been linked to Missouri's athletic department. Former running back Derrick Washington was convicted in 2010 of sexually assaulting a tutor in her sleep, and basketball player Michael Dixon transferred in 2012 after two sex assault claims against him went public, though he was never charged.

In suburban Toronto, Mike Menu and his wife Lynn Courey have channeled their grief into a mental health foundation named in her memory. They want accountability from Missouri, though Menu said the couple hasn't hired an attorney and isn't "looking for money."

"We just want to make sure that changes are made," Mike Menu said. "We need more than Band-Aids. We need a transformation."

Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier