The countdown to the2026 World Cupis on! Each day ahead of the tournament’s return to North America, Yahoo Sports will highlight an insight or moment that showcases just how grand the world’s biggest sporting spectacle has become — even beyond the expanded field of this year’s global event.
This summer will be the 23rd version of the World Cup, nearly 100 years after the debut of the global tournament. But things look very different than they did in 1930, when Uruguay lifted the inaugural trophy.
For one thing, the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay was significantly smaller than today, with just 13 teams entering the tournament. All members of FIFA — which included just 16 countries at the time — were invited to compete. Three did not participate, with Japan and Siam (now Thailand) declining to make the long journey, and Egypt not joining after missing a boat that would have taken them across the Atlantic.
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The inaugural World Cup also had a shortened structure: There were four groups of three or four countries, with one winner from each group advancing to a semifinal.
Even the trophy has changed: The original trophy, modeled after the winged Greek goddess of victory, Nike, was used from 1930-1974. It was then replaced with the iconic globe trophy that we still see today.
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In the years since, the tournament has slowly grown. In 1982, the World Cup expanded to 24 teams for the first time, including two group stages (a first- and a second-round) before the semifinals. A year later, the double group stage format was ditched in favor of a more straightforward knockout round that started with a Round of 16. The number then grew again to 32 teams in 1998.
Now, in 2026, the tournament has expanded to 48 teams, allowing more nations than ever to compete on the global stage. There will be 12 groups, plus a knockout stage with a brand-new Round of 32, and104 total matchesacross the competition.
All of this leads to a tournament that is increasingly more global. The very first World Cup exclusively included nations from Europe and the Americas as a result of the three absences; four years later, Egypt arrived as the first African country in the tournament.
The48-team expansionthis summer, though, lets even more countries vie for the trophy. UEFA, the European governing body, received the most spots with 16; the CAF in Africa has nine, while the AFC in Asia holds eight. South America’s CONMEBOL gets six berths, as does CONCACAF, including the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico). Oceania (OFC), the smallest confederation, gets a guaranteed spot for the first time, which New Zealand took.
On top of that, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo took the final two open spots as part ofthe qualifying playoff, which also determined the last four UEFA spots. This year will also have four countriesmaking their World Cup debut, with one from CAF, one from CONCACAF and two from AFC.
All of this adds up to a busy World Cup with a wide, exciting field — nearly unrecognizable from the small competition 96 years ago.
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