The 2026 World Cup opened on June 11, 2026, at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, and it was played in 16 cities: 11 in the United States, 3 in Mexico and 2 in Canada. As of November 2026, the 2026 World Cup had 48 teams, more than ever before, which was 16 more than in the previous seven tournaments, and three countries hosted it: Canada, Mexico and the United States. As of November 2026, Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan played their first World Cup in 2026, and the 2026 mascots were Maple the moose, Zayu the jaguar and Clutch the bald eagle. As of November 2026, about 250 million people play soccer in over 200 countries and territories, soccer is called the most popular sport in the world, and FIFA has 211 member national associations, and soccer has six regional groups under FIFA. As of 2026, 84 national teams have played in the World Cup and eight have won it, and as of November 2026 Brazil has won the World Cup five times. Germany and Italy have four titles each, Argentina three, and France, Spain and Uruguay two each, and as of November 2026 attendance at the 2026 World Cup was 6,810,966, or 65,490 per match.

A Chinese kicking game called cuju was recorded in the Han dynasty, and Cambridge rules, first drawn up in 1848, influenced the later association football codes. The Football Association was formed in London in 1863 and published the first rules, and the Laws of the Game have been in effect since 1863 and kept since 1886 by a rule-keeping group called the IFAB. A player is in an offside position if closer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent, and in February 1866 the Football Association added a rule that a player was not offside if three opponents were between him and their goal. The first international match was played in Glasgow in 1872, Scotland against England, and FIFA was founded in Paris on 21 May 1904, with first members that included Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Football became an official Olympic sport at the 1908 Games in London, for amateur players only. On 28 May 1928 the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship, and FIFA named Uruguay host of the first World Cup because it was celebrating its centenary of independence in 1930. No European country pledged to send a team until two months before it started.

The World Cup is held every four years, and thirteen nations played the first one in 1930: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America. The first two World Cup matches were played on 13 July 1930; France beat Mexico 4-1 and the United States beat Belgium 3-0. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France, and Uruguay won the first World Cup by beating Argentina 4-2. The first trophy was renamed in 1946 for FIFA president Jules Rimet, who set up the first tournament, and the first World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, was kept by Brazil after its third win in 1970. The 1950 World Cup in Brazil was the first to include teams from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The World Cup trophy is 36 cm tall and made of solid 18 carat gold. Experts from seven countries judged 53 designs and chose the trophy by Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga, and the bottom of the trophy is engraved with each World Cup winner since 1974. Winners hold the trophy at the party but then get a gold-plated copy.

Qualifying games for the World Cup can start almost three years before the tournament, and the host country gets a place in the World Cup without qualifying. Host nations have qualified automatically since the 1938 World Cup, while the team that won the previous World Cup stopped qualifying automatically from 2006. Co-hosting, suspended after 2002, was approved again for the 48-team 2026 World Cup, and Morocco was selected as a co-host of the 2030 World Cup with Portugal, Spain, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Mexico became the first country to host the World Cup three times, and the first Women's World Cup was held in China in 1991, and the Women's World Cup is held every four years. As of November 2026, the Women's World Cup has 32 teams in its final tournament, and the nine Women's World Cups have been won by five teams, with the United States holding four titles, more than any team. Brazil is scheduled to host the 2027 Women's World Cup, and the 2031 Women's World Cup is expected to be hosted jointly by Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico and the United States, and it will be the first Women's World Cup with 48 teams.

At the World Cup, teams first play in groups of four. If both teams have the same score, the match is a draw, and in a group a win earns three points, a draw one point and a loss none. In 2026, the top two teams in each group, plus the eight best third-place teams, advance. After the groups come knockout games, and losing a knockout match means a team is out, while extra time, when used, is two equal periods of up to 15 minutes each, and if a knockout game is still tied after extra time, a penalty shoot-out picks the winner. The 2026 final was played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford on July 19, and the tournament had 308 goals in 104 matches, about 2.96 goals per match. As of November 2026, the 2022 World Cup was estimated to have 5 billion people engage, with about 1.5 billion watching the final. As of November 2026, the top four teams in the FIFA ranking, Argentina, Spain, France and England, all reached the semifinals. Spain beat Argentina, the winner of the previous World Cup, 1-0 after extra time in the final, winning its second title.

Words to know

• semifinals: last four games
• centenary: 100th anniversary
• amateur: unpaid player
• engraved: cut into metal