From heartbreak to hype: Who qualified, who didn’t, and who advances from the groups

The guest list is fi­nal­ly set. Af­ter a qual­i­fy­ing jour­ney that felt longer than a marathon, 48 teams have booked their tick­ets to Mex­i­co, Cana­da, and the Unit­ed States for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup. While the cel­e­bra­tions are in full swing, we must pause for a mo­ment of si­lence for the gi­ants who tripped over their own shoelaces at the fi­nal hur­dle.

Italy would be the biggest name not to make the fi­nal cut. Italy has now missed so many World Cups (3 in a row), I’m start­ing to think they are al­ler­gic to the tour­na­ment. For a four-time cham­pi­on ranked No 12 to miss out again is a na­tion­al dis­as­ter. They aren’t alone in the VIP lounge of the un­in­vit­ed, joined by Den­mark, Poland, and Hun­gary from UE­FA (Eu­rope).

They are joined in the “Maybe Next Time” club by Nige­ria, Cameroon from CAF (Con­fed­er­a­tion of African Foot­ball), as well as Chile and Pe­ru from CON­MEBOL (South Amer­i­ca). Right in our back­yard, CON­CA­CAF (North/Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Caribbean), Cos­ta Ri­ca, Hon­duras, Ja­maica, and, dare I say, Trinidad & To­ba­go were all left heart­bro­ken. Ja­maica’s heart­break hits a dif­fer­ent fre­quen­cy af­ter blow­ing a “must-win” fi­nale against Cu­ra­cao, on­ly to re­peat the feat against DR Con­go. It was a clas­sic case of snatch­ing de­feat from the jaws of cer­tain­ty. As they say, what will be will be, and their fate was not to qual­i­fy for the 2026 World Cup.

FI­FA’s new 12-group for­mat is a sprawl­ing beast. For the teams that have qual­i­fied, there are 12 groups, A to L, each with four teams. In the “old days” (World Cup 2022), there were eight teams in four groups; there­fore, there were al­ways favoured teams meet­ing each oth­er in the first round, and in­evitably a ‘Group of Death’ would emerge. This time around, we have the “Group of Con­cern”. Can Group C be con­sid­ered the “Group of Con­cern” with Brazil, Mo­roc­co, Scot­land and Haiti? What about Group F with Nether­lands, Japan (who just de­feat­ed Eng­land), Swe­den and Tunisia? Maybe it’s Group I with France, Sene­gal, Nor­way and Iraq. I find it tough as many of the groups are quite even­ly matched.

Af­ter the first round in this new world or­der with 48 teams, 32 teams will then ad­vance to a new knock­out round. The top two teams from each of the 12 groups, plus the eight best third-place teams, qual­i­fy for the knock­out stage be­fore the tra­di­tion­al round of 16 starts. This new for­mat in­creas­es the num­ber of match­es to 104 and ex­tends the tour­na­ment to 39 days, a huge dis­par­i­ty from 2022, when 64 match­es were played in 29 days. More foot­ball now for the fans to see.

Pick­ing the top two in each group is a bit like pick­ing lot­tery num­bers, but I’ve nev­er been one to shy away from a chal­lenge. Based on pedi­gree, his­to­ry, and a touch of gut feel­ing, here is my pre­dic­tion as to the teams that will ad­vance:

Group A:

Czech Re­pub­lic and Mex­i­co

Group B:

Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina and Switzer­land

Group C:

Brazil and Mo­roc­co

Group D:

USA and Turkey

Group E:

Ger­many and Ivory Coast

Group F:

Nether­lands and Japan

Group G:

Bel­gium and Egypt

Group H:

Spain and Uruguay

Group I:

France and Sene­gal

Group J:

Ar­genti­na and Al­ge­ria

Group K:

Colom­bia and Por­tu­gal

Group L:

Eng­land and Ghana

The re­main­ing eight teams to fill the spots to make up the 32 is dif­fi­cult as any num­ber can play. World Cups are al­ways packed with sur­pris­es, as his­to­ry has shown us to ex­pect the un­ex­pect­ed. There will al­ways be a team or two that will come up with a sur­prise and not on­ly de­feat a big name but al­so squeeze them out from mov­ing for­ward, as has hap­pened in every sin­gle World Cup ever held.

We need on­ly look back at 2022 to see Mo­roc­co’s his­toric semi­fi­nal run, Turkey fin­ish­ing in third place, Sau­di Ara­bia’s am­bush of Ar­genti­na, or Japan’s “gi­ant-killing” spree against Spain and Ger­many. Ex­pect a few big names to be un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly evict­ed ear­ly, as I would ex­pect 2026 to have a few up­sets. As usu­al, it should be an ex­cit­ing FI­FA World Cup.

Be­fore clos­ing, let me ask all foot­ball fans to come down to the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on April 17, to sup­port our women’s na­tion­al foot­ball team in their de­ci­sive CON­CA­CAF Women’s World Cup Qual­i­fi­er against El Sal­vador. The women and coach Dami­an Brig­gs en­ter the qual­i­fi­er know­ing on­ly a win will se­cure pro­gres­sion to the next round. Tak­ing care of busi­ness against Bar­ba­dos with a re­sound­ing 5-1 vic­to­ry, they had to pull out all the stops to come from be­hind and draw with Hon­duras in Tegu­ci­gal­pa.

This time, the team is at home and with thou­sands of fans in the sta­di­um cheer­ing them on, they can do it. The top four teams in the CON­CA­CAF fi­nal round qual­i­fy for the FI­FA Women’s World Cup 2027. The losers will en­ter an in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal play­off. Coach Brig­gs has asked the na­tion to come out and sup­port the team. As he right­ly said, “play­ing at home, we’d love for every­one to come out and sup­port be­cause we feel it. That en­er­gy lifts us and can help get us across the line.”

This is an­oth­er gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty for our women. Do you re­mem­ber those painful mem­o­ries in 2014, at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, when the team lost 1-0 to Ecuador in the in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal play­off for the fi­nal spot in the 2015 FI­FA Women’s World Cup? Let us ral­ly be­hind the women as they go for glo­ry.