From'Africa to'Asia: the 28 national teams already qualified for the 2026 World Cup

The list of World Cup 2026 participants was enriched on Tuesday evening, and not only after the qualifying matches played in Europe. In fact, if the Old Continent saw only England unlocking its ticket for the event hosted next summer between Canada, the United States and Mexico, Africa and Asia also added some names to their qualifiers for the tournament.

Africa sees Senegal (thanks to a 4-0 win over Mauritania), Côte d’Ivoire (after a 3-0 win over Kenya) and South Africa (a decisive 3-0 win over Rwanda) join Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Ghana and the fabled Cape Verde. For Asia, in addition to the already qualified Iran, Japan, South Korea, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Australia (the latter, as known, participates in the Asian qualifiers and not in the Oceania qualifiers), there are now Saudi Arabia, thanks to a 0-0 home draw with Iraq, and Qatar (2-1 over the United Arab Emirates).

These are the top teams in the Asian qualifiers.

Based on these results, the selections already certain to take part in the 2026 World Cup are now 28. That leaves 20 to go, of which as many as 15 have yet to arrive from Europe. And Italy, certain to play at least in the playoffs after the 3-0 win over Israel, hopes to make it back into this list by breaking the curse that began in 2014 after the last World Cup elimination occurred in Brazil with the defeat against Uruguay.

QUALIFIED AS HOSTS (3)
Canada
Mexico
United States

AFRICA (9)
Algeria
Cape Verde
Côte d’Ivory Coast
Egypt
Ghana
Morocco
Senegal
South Africa
Tunisia

ASIA (8)
Saudi Arabia
Australia
South Korea
Japan
Jordan
Iran
Qatar
Uzbekistan

EUROPA (1)
England

SOUTH AMERICA (6)

Argentina
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
Paraguay
Uruguay

OCEANIA (1)
New Zealand