The draw for the group stage of the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico 2026 will take place on Friday, December 5. It will be held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., where the path of the 48 teams, minus those that qualify for the playoffs, will be known in the next World Cup.
As in all draws, some teams will have better luck than others by virtue of the pairings. Surely none of them will want to face Morocco, one of the great revelations of Qatar 2022 that arrives launched to the tournament and has been placed in Pot 2. The ‘Atlas Lions’ will be one of the ‘bogey teams’ of the draw.
Why is Morocco in Pot 2?
It’s a simple reason. FIFA establishes a ranking with the best teams of the moment. Morocco is ranked 11th, but the top-seeded pot has three places for the host teams and nine for the best in the FIFA rankings. This means that Croatia and Morocco automatically go into pot 2, and Italy, even though they are ranked 12th, have to go through the playoffs to go into pot 4.
That is why teams that could be in pot 1 of the draw become teams to be avoided by the top seeds.
Why are there seeds in the World Cup draw?
The World Cup draw features a number of seeded teams in order to balance the groups in the first instance and not create an imbalance between them. This is why the best teams are placed in pot 1, along with the hosts; the next best teams in pot 2; and so on until pots 3 and 4 are completed with all the teams.
- Pot 1: United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
- Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.
- Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
- Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curacao, Haiti, New Zealand + 4 UEFA play-off qualifiers and 2 inter-confederation qualifiers
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