Heimir goes to Washington
It is snowing in Washington DC, ahead of the draw which will be the biggest draw in history, and that’s not just Trump talk. The World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams and considering 16 teams are still left in the playoffs in Europe and six in the interconfederation playoffs, that’s 70 teams with interest in this draw, that’s about a third of the total Fifa nations.
Iranian football team’s head coach Ardeshir Amir Ghalenoei has arrived, with a delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation, before the draw, according to reports. Iran initially said they would boycott the ceremony in the US capital over visa issues.
Hallgrímsson will there leading a FAI delegation.
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the 2026 World Cup draw, which takes place at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC at 5pm. Or at least starting at 5pm, with Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky and Shaquille O’Neal among others involved it might go on a while.
It’s somewhat a hypothetical for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, it requires winning two playoff games, but they will at least know then who they will be playing and whether qualifying will give them a chance of going far in the tournament or not. They will be in pot 4, where there is a a smattering of quality in all pots, but pot 1 has the big hitters and the not-quite-so-strong hosts of USA, Mexico, Canada, so they’d be better ones to get.
Pot 1 will include the host nations – USA, Canada and Mexico alongside Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Pot 2, based on Fifa rankings, will be Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.
Pot 3 includes Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Pot 4 includes Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand and the six outstanding qualifiers.
