2026 World Cup match schedule to be confirmed by FIFA on Sunday, 4 February

The 2026 World Cup will be different in many ways. For the first time ever, the competition has been expanded and will feature 48 participating nations with 104 games now to be played rather than the traditional 64 with 32 participants.

This will also be the first World Cup to be staged by three host nations as Mexico, Canada and principally the United States stage matches during the competition that starts in June 2026 and concludes on 19 July with the final.

Argentina are the reigning hosts with Lionel Scaloni’s men hoping to defend their title in two years time.

FIFA to confirm match schedule

Football’s global governing body FIFA have confirmed that they will unveil the match schedule for the tournament next Sunday (4 February) at a special event which gets underway at 3pm (ET).

The host city allocations for all 104 matches of the tournament in 2026 will be announced during this programme. The broadcast will also reveal the location of the tournament’s opening matches in Canada, Mexico and the USA, the group stage locations for each host country’s national team and the venue for the eagerly awaited World Cup final, which is scheduled for Sunday, 19 July 2026.

World Cup 2026: host cities

Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, New York/ New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle are the US host cities with games to be played in Canada’s Toronto and Vancouver. The three Mexican host cities are Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City.

What this means for fans

It will be interesting to discover key information such as the opening date and the venue that will host the final but by and large what we will discover is that, for example the city of Seattle will host game B2 vs B3 on X date. With the names of the teams allocated to the letters and numbers only being disclosed upon the actual group stage draw.

Still, an event of this nature does mean that the tournament is looming ever closer with the qualifying process slowly starting to start in many confederations with the UEFA competition scheduled to begin in March 2025 and conclude in March 2026.

Follow the 2026 World Cup reveal with AS USA

We will bring you all the developments from Sunday’s event and our live coverage will build up to proceedings roughly an hour before the ceremony gets underway.