The 2026 World Cup is still nearly three years away, but with the curtain coming down on Qatar 2022, the anticipation for Justin Britt Jersey the next tournament is already growing.With the United States, Canada and Mexico set to jointly host the 2026 tournament, there's more information starting to emerge regarding how the tournament will work.Not only is the 2026 World Cup the first jointly hosted tournament since the 2002 event in South Korea and Japan, but it is also set to feature an expansion of the field to an unprecedented 48 teams. As such, there are many logistical determinations for FIFA to make over the next four years.One of those details is how qualification will work. The additional qualification slots have already been allocated to various confederations, and FIFA also announced whether the host nations will automatically qualify for the tournament.MORE: FIFA confirmed that the three co-hosts will automatically be participating at the 2026 men's World Cup. The decision was made by the FIFA Council and ."In line with the longstanding tradition of having all hosts competing at the FIFA World Cup, as well as sporting and operational considerations, the hosts of the FIFA World Cup 2026, namely Canada, Mexico and the USA, will qualify automatically for the final round of the competition, with their slots therefore being deducted from the overall allocation of six a signed to CONCACAF North America region ."Details will follow in due course regarding the preliminary competitions in all confederations for the FIFA World Cup 2026."There was always widespread expectation that Phil Haynes Jersey all three hosts the United States, Canada, and Mexico would be introduced as automatic qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, especially since it was even referenced by the .Since the first FIFA World Cup in 1930, the host nation has always qualified for the tournament automatically. Even in 2002, the only other World Cup to be jointly hosted by multiple nations, both Japan and South Korea entered the tournament automatically as hosts.MORE: In May of 2017, which confederations will get the extra places in the 2026 World Cup.Africa and Asia are the regions receiving the most new berths. The European and South American confederations received three additional spots. North America's three additional spots are in e sence the three host berths, with three more teams as well as a playoff qualifier to come through qualifying.Below is a comparison of the allocation of 2022 World Cup places, as they have been set since 1998, and the new expansion for the 2026 World Cup.Confederation2022 Places2026 PlacesChangeAFC4.58.5+4CAF59.5+4.5CONCACAF3.56.5+3CONMEBOL4.56.5+2OFC0.51.5+1UEFA1316+3TOTAL31(+host)48+18The intercontinental playoffs have also been expanded, from four teams to six teams. Ethan Pocic Jersey Five of the teams will be determined rigidly from tournament to tournament as indicated by the "half places" in the table above, with the sixth team coming from an additional slot awarded to the host confederation (in 2026, that is CONCACAF).The six intercontinental playoff teams will be seeded according to FIFA ranking, with the top two earning a bye and the other four playing in a preliminary round.According to the 2017 update, a singular host would automatically qualify for the tournament and have its allocation taken from that confederation's allocation. However, because there is not official clarity on how multiple host qualification would work, we do not officially know which if any of the 2026 World Cup hosts would qualify automatically for the Cody Barton Jersey tournament and whether their places would take up slots from the CONCACAF allocation of six automatic places.Due to the fact that the 2026 World Cup hosts are three of the strongest teams in CONCACAF and likely to qualify anyway, the expectation is that the three hosts will automatically qualify and, like a singular host, their places will count toward CONCACAF's six guaranteed slots. As the first World Cup with 48 participants, FIFA has already laid out the format for the tournament's structure.In the 32-team format used in Qatar 2022, there was a group stage involving eight groups of four teams each. The top two finishers in each group qualified for a 16-team single-elimination bracket-style knockout stage.In the 2026 World Cup, with 48 teams involved, the format will nece sitate change. As such, FIFA confirmed that the group stage will be reworked to feature 16 groups of three teams each. The top two finishers in each group will advance to a widened 32-teamsingle-elimination bracket-style knockout stage.In the new expanded format, the total number of matches in the World Cup will increase from 64 in 2022 to 80 in 2026. Despite the increase in total matches, the maximum number of games any single team can play remains fixed at seven, with two in the group stage and Will Dissly Jersey five in the knockout stage.After the 2022 World Cup there were rumblings that FIFA could rethink this new format to allow for the suspense created by four-team groups.