Pots revealed for 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw: Who could CanMNT 🇨🇦 face?

With the official draw for FIFA World Cup 2026 coming up on Friday, Dec. 5, FIFA have revealed the pots and procedures for determining which teams will slot into each group this summer.

The 48 participating teams (six of them still unknown, to be determined in March's play-offs) have been split into four pots of 12, based on the most recent FIFA World Rankings. As hosts, Canada, the United States and Mexico have all been placed in Pot 1.

Six remaining places in the World Cup will go to the four winners of UEFA's European play-offs and two winners of intercontinental play-offs. Since those teams have not yet qualified, placeholders for those spots have been allocated to Pot 4 automatically.

Canada know already that they will be the Pot 1 team in Group B. They'll be joined by one team from each of Pots 2, 3 and 4. According to the draw rules, teams from confederations outside of UEFA cannot draw opponents from the same confederation, which means Canada will not be meeting any of Curaçao, Haiti or Panama. Each group is guaranteed to have at least one European team, but not more than two (including the four play-off teams).

The draw will take place on Dec. 5 at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., beginning at 12 p.m. ET. Once the groups are known the full match schedule with kickoff times and venues will be revealed on Saturday, Dec. 6.

Canada are already set to play their group stage matches on June 12 in Toronto, then June 18 and 24 in Vancouver. They'll learn via the draw which opponents they're taking on in each of those matches, as well as which other nations will be playing in the remaining seven group stage games in Canada.

The four pots are as follows.

Pot 1: Canada (Host), United States (Host), Mexico (Host), Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany

Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, Korea Republic, Ecuador, Austria, Australia

Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d'Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa

Pot 4: Jordan, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, UEFA Play-Off A, B, C and D, FIFA intercontinental Play-Off 1 and 2

Image: FIFA.com

Each of the UEFA and FIFA play-off paths have been allocated to specific places in Pot 4, as follows:

European Play-Off A: Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales, Bosnia & Herzegovina

European Play-Off B: Ukraine, Sweden, Poland, Albania

European Play-Off C: Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo

European Play-Off D: Denmark, North Macedonia, Czechia, Republic of Ireland

FIFA Play-Off 1: New Caledonia, Jamaica, Congo DR

FIFA Play-Off 2: Bolivia, Suriname, Iraq