UPDATE: What the 2026 FIFA World Cup field could look like?

It's not surprising that FIFA to an extent came to its senses and scrapped its World Cup format of 16 groups of 3 teams.

Last year I wrote about what the tournament could look like and the many challenges that format has - fast-forward to March and FIFA announced the format for the first 48-team World Cup will change to 12 groups of 4 - what the format should've been in the first place.

With that news is time to update - how the 2026 FIFA World Cup could look like - and is very obvious that even with the increase of games to 104 games from 80 - the tournament will get much better.

Just like in my previous projection - I decided to use the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup as the measuring stick to who makes the cut.

In addition to the 32 teams that made the World Cup in Qatar we need 16 more, Europe is getting 3 more spots, Africa getting 4, Asia getting 3, Concacaf and South America get 2 more and Oceania getting 1.

What other countries would've made the field?

CONCACAF - Panama and Jamaica

South America - Peru and Colombia

Europe - Ukraine, Sweden and North Macedonia (Italy would've still missed the field.)

Africa - Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Mali

Asia - United Arab Emirates and Oman

Oceania - New Zealand

The six teams going to an intercontinental playoff for the final two sports would have been Chile, Iraq, El Salvador, Honduras, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Solomon Islands. For Simplicity purposes I gave Chile and Iraq, the two highest ranked teams - the last two places.

Last time I made the hosts, and the top team from each region with the exemption of New Zealand the seeded teams.

Now with 12 Groups I simply made the three hosts and best nine ranked teams the top seeds.

What could the groups look like?