the 29 teams that have already secured their presence at the 2026 World Championship

Ashley Davis14/11/2025

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Article by Adrian Duţă – Published Friday, November 14, 2025, 08:06 / Updated Friday, November 14, 2025 08:11

After it was 0-0 at halftime, the French went wild in the second half. Mbappe opened the scoring in the 55th minute, from the penalty spot. Olise made it 2-0, from Kante's pass, and Mbappe scored the double in the 83rd minute, dispelling any doubt about the winner.

Ekitike put the icing on the cake with a late goal and France qualified ahead of the final group stage of the qualifiers. The “Galic Rooster” national team will face Azerbaijan again on Sunday.

France, the second European national team mathematically qualified for the World Championship

Before France, from Europe only England qualified mathematically for the World Cup. The rest will be decided in the coming days, when all the groups will know their winners. The 12 national teams that will finish 1st in the group will go directly.

The teams that will rank 2nd will participate in the play-off in March, where there will also be 4 national teams from the Nations League route. Romania will also be in the playoffs, even if they don't finish 2nd in the preliminaries. The “Tricolori” have the road secured anyway on the Nations League route, because they won their group in League C.

In total, 29 national teams have already qualified for next year's World Championship, which will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico. The tournament will take place between June 11 and July 19. It will be the first tournament in history with 48 teams.