The FIFA World Cup 2026 will be the biggest ever in history as 48 teams will fight it out for the coveted crown. The expansion of the world’s biggest football tournament to 48 nations meant that 4 countries qualified for the tournament for the very first time. More teams means more games and more competition. 

The likes of Spain, England, France and Argentina will undoubtedly begin the tournament as favourites, but the expansion of the World Cup gives hope to smaller nations like Curacao, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan and Jordan to rub their shoulders with the best. 

What the expansion of the FIFA World Cup means for smaller teams?

Curacao, for example, will become the smallest nation to participate in a World Cup when they take on Germany, Ivory Coast and Ecuador in Group E.

They only became a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 2010. Cape Verde, meanwhile, are the third-smallest nation after Curacao and Iceland to reach the World Cup. Uzbekistan and Jordan bring their Asian flair to the biggest stage.  

With more qualification slots up for grabs, the 48-team World Cup doesn’t necessarily mean that more teams from Europe or South Africa will join the carnival; smaller confederations like the AFC and CAF also benefited from it. A record 10 African nations have qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the highest figure in the tournament’s history. It brings more diversity, more flair, more culture to the biggest carnival of football. 

Apart from the four debutant countries, there are the likes of Norway, Morocco, Egypt and Japan, teams that have the potential to actually give a few headaches to the powerhouses of Europe. Canada, as hosts, will be no pushovers either, but in a group featuring Qatar, Switzerland and Bosnia-Herzegovina, they will certainly fancy their chances. 

More talent on showcase

Countries like Curaçao, Cape Verde, and Haiti have managed to bring in players born in Europe, to turn up for the smaller teams after they failed to make the cut for the bigwigs. Those eligible to play for these nations through their lineage will get to play at the biggest stage with relatively less competition. This shrewd strategy can help the smaller nations give higher-ranked teams a tougher fight. 

Tahith Chong, Duckens Nazon, among several others, chose to represent smaller nations through their parents’ lineage and will be able to showcase their talent at the World Cup. 

More history up for grabs

To accommodate the 48 teams, FIFA tweaked the format of the World Cup to increase the number of groups to 12, with the 8 best third-placed teams set to join the top two teams from each group in a brand new round of 32 stage. 

That means in itself that history will be up for grabs as plenty of teams will qualify for the knockouts for the very first time. The fact that only the top two teams from a group qualified for the knockouts previously meant that many bigwigs failed to reach the round of 16 despite having six points; Algeria (1982), Nigeria (2002) and Ukraine (2014) were prime examples. 

That won’t be the case in 2026 as six points may just be enough to clinch a best third-place spot and a seat in the round of 32 fixtures. 

Who doesn’t love an underdog story?

From South Korea’s historic fourth-place finish in 2002 to Morocco’s run to the semifinals in Qatar 2022, fans simply love an underdog team defying the odds to go deep into the tournament. 

The expansion to 48 teams gives the smaller nations that extra safety net to upset the heavyweights. Croatia in 2018 wasn’t an underdog story, but before the tournament, nobody would have predicted the Croatians would be playing France in the final. These stories make the World Cup special, and with another knockout round in place, more matches and more players, there will certainly be more special stories told this summer. 

There will be fewer must-win games since there are more slots to advance to the knockouts. More teams coming into the World Cup means more mismatches, more chaos, but only one team which wins all of their 8 matches will be crowned the champion in 2026. 

Truly the global game?

FIFA, like any other sports federation in the world, wants its game to expand to newer horizons. An expanded World Cup will give fans new teams to cheer for, and it helps the global body take the game to new avenues, to newer markets to make revenue from. 

Rise of the first underdog champion?

Even as smaller teams will fight for their spots in the knockouts, those who have won the World Cups know that the tournament is only won with the fittest, strongest, and the meanest group of players, who have an elite talent pool. 2026 may certainly witness a few dark horses cause a few upsets, but such is the format of the tournament that only the team that manages to win 8 matches will take home the big prize. 

However, not all teams come to the World Cup for the trophy; some arrive at the biggest stage to entertain, enthrall the fans, and produce eternal moments of heartbreak and joy. FIFA’s move to expand the tournament ensures there will be no shortage of that