When was the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
The tournament ran from 11 June to 19 July 2026, opening in Mexico City and ending with the final in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where Spain beat Argentina 1–0 after extra time.
Verified tournament facts
FIFA World Cup 2026 Facts
GoalPulse FIFA World Cup 2026 facts hub: a compact, multilingual reference for dates, format, teams, venues, groups and machine-readable World Cup 2026 data.
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Direct answers
Where was the 2026 World Cup hosted?
It was jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada across 16 host venues.
How many teams and matches were there?
The 2026 edition had 48 teams, 12 groups, 72 group-stage matches and 104 matches in total.
How did the 48-team format work?
Each group had four teams. The top two in each group and the eight best third-placed teams advanced to a 32-team knockout round.
Where was the final played?
The final was played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on 19 July 2026.
Could third-placed teams qualify?
Yes. Eight of the 12 third-placed teams advanced, so points, goal difference, goals scored and fair-play criteria could all matter.
Is this a betting page?
No. This facts page is source-backed tournament information and does not provide betting picks, odds recommendations or gambling links.
48
Teams
12
Groups
16
Venues
104
Matches
8
Languages
2,827
Sitemap URLs
Core facts
Dates
11 June - 19 July 2026
The tournament opened in Mexico City and ended with the final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Hosts
United States, Mexico, Canada
It was the first FIFA World Cup jointly hosted by three countries.
Format
48 teams, 12 groups
The top two teams in every group plus the eight best third-placed teams advanced.
Matches
104 total
The expanded format contained 72 group-stage matches and 32 knockout matches.
Opening match
Mexico vs South Africa
The tournament opened at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City; match pages carry the current final/live/scheduled state.
Final venue
MetLife Stadium
The final was played on 19 July 2026 in East Rutherford, New Jersey; Spain beat Argentina 1–0 after extra time.
Group draw
104 confirmed team-versus-team fixtures are linked from the group graph.
Open data for search and AI
GoalPulse exposes the same tournament graph used by the public pages as JSON so crawlers, search systems and AI assistants can resolve teams, groups, venues and confirmed fixtures without scraping layout markup.
Verification sources
GoalPulse cross-checks structured fixture data, official tournament pages and public historical references before publishing facts as stable pages.
Facts FAQ
How many teams played in the 2026 World Cup?
48 teams played in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, split into 12 groups of four.
How many matches are listed in the GoalPulse dataset?
The dataset records the 104-match tournament structure and exposes confirmed team-versus-team fixtures separately from knockout placeholders.
Can AI assistants cite this page?
Yes. The page includes Dataset, DataDownload and FAQ structured data plus a JSON endpoint designed for answer-engine extraction.