World Cup 2026 draw LIVE: England and Scotland to discover qualifying groups today

The first part of this draw is to place the teams in pot 1. This includes England so Thomas Tuchel will be on high alert right now.

Here are the teams getting drawn out first:

Pot 1: Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria

With five pots to draw from, Fifa now call on football legends to help draw the ball.

There are 54 teams in the draw and there are a number of factors involved. A video explaining how the draw works is now played to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, is now introduced and has provided a quick speech through a VT. He points out the ‘unwavering spirit of players and passion of fans that make this tournament special’.

Just a few more formalities to go until we can get to the point of why we’re all here.

Gianni Infantino, Fifa’s president, has just been described as ‘the main man’ as he is introduced onto the stage ahead of this draw in Zurich.

He starts his speech about the beauty of the World Cup trophy and congratulates each nation for qualifying for the qualification stage.

There’s a couple of points to note before the draw takes place. The four teams who win the Nations League quarter-finals in March will all be sent into groups of four (A-F).

That is because the Nations League finals are played in June leaving no time for other qualifying games. The teams in the quarter-finals will be drawn as placeholders and their groups filled out after the results are known next year.

Nations League promotion-relegation play-off teams are in a similar boat and should end up in a four-team group. Scotland are one such side.

Here we go. The draw is about to get underway in just a few minutes time. The teams will be drawn in order of pots – so pot one teams first, then pot two etc.

Here’s a reminder of all the pots:

Pot 1: Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria

Pot 2: Ukraine, Sweden, Turkey, Wales, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Norway

Pot 3: Scotland, Slovenia, Republic of Ireland, Albania, North Macedonia, Georgia, Finland, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel

Pot 4: Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Kosovo, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Lithuania

Pot 5: Moldova, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, San Marino

With the World Cup 2026 now featuring 48 teams in an expanded tournament the format for European qualifying has changed.

There are now 12 World Cup qualifying groups with six featuring four teams and six having five teams. Teams play each other home and away with the team finishing top of the group qualifying for the World Cup.

Thomas Tuchel has arrived:

The 2026 World Cup Finals will be staged across 16 cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

United States (11): Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle

Mexico (3): Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey

Canada (2): Toronto, Vancouver

The World Cup Final will be held in New York on 19 July 2026.

There were more than a few moments when Thomas Tuchel was speaking and Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham looked visibly proud. One was when the new England manager spoke of wanting to put “a second star on the shirt”, at which point Bullingham sat back and almost puffed out his chest.

Everyone was open about the fact that this is solely about 2026, with even Tuchel outright talking of getting “England over the line”. It’s as simple as that. Tuchel also spoke of “making our dream come true in America”, since these are, of course, his dreams now, too.

The German had a lot of these lines, since he knows what buttons to push. This effect on players is one of the reasons that the FA picked him, since his charisma can be captivating. That is all the more positive when this World Cup is going to be by far the most commercially lucrative in history, at an anticipated revenue of $11bn. Everyone knows Tuchel can speak, and this introductory press conference obviously wasn’t a first impression. That knowledge of England is one of the reasons he is here.