How Does the World Cup Get from 48 Teams to One Winning Team?

The 2026 Soccer World Cup is scheduled for June 11th to July 19th, to be held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It’s to be the biggest World Cup yet.

The games are played in 16 cities, 11 in the U.S., 2 in Canada and 3 in Mexico.

There are 104 games to be played, with 48 national teams competing.

At the end though, there’s just one winning team.

So how do they do it? How are the games organized?

The games are divided into phases: the Group Stage, Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Third Place Match and the Final Game.

GROUP STAGE (June 11th- June 27th)
The 48 teams are divided into 12 groups. Each group has 4 national teams. Each of these four national teams plays each of the other 3. A team receives 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie and zero for a loss. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams of the group proceed to the next stage, along with the 8 highest-scoring 3rd place teams among all groups.

Mexico is in Group A, along with South Africa, South Korea and the Czech Republic. So the Mexico team has to play each of those other 3 teams in the Group Stage, then the calculations are made.

Canada is in Group B, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar and Switzerland.

The U.S.A. is in Group D, with Paraguay, Australia and Turkey.

ROUND OF 32 (June 28th-July 3rd)

At the beginning of this stage there are 32 teams. In this stage it’s single elimination, lose one game and your team is out.

ROUND OF 16 (July 4th to July 7th)

There are now 16 teams, single elimination again.

QUARTERFINALS (July 9th to July 11th)

There are 8 teams, single elimination.

SEMIFINALS (July 14th, 15th)
Four teams. Two games.

THIRD PLACE MATCH (July 18th)
The two teams who lost in the Semifinals play each other, the winner is in third place of the World Cup.

WORLD CUP FINAL GAME (July 19th, East Rutherford, New Jersey)
The two teams who won the semifinals play each other. The losing team is in second place. The winning team wins the 2026 World Cup.

Click here for the entire schedule and where to watch.