UEFA announces 16 teams for the 2026 World Cup European playoffs — Italy, Ukraine, and Poland set to battle for the final 4 spots

Zurich, Nov 20, 2025 — The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has officially announced the list of 16 teams eligible to compete in the playoff stage to determine the final four European representatives for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The playoff draw was completed last Friday at UEFA’s headquarters in Zurich.

The playoff format remains the same, featuring a two-leg knockout system across four brackets (A–D), with matches scheduled during the FIFA international window in March 2026:

Semi-finals: March 26
Finals (to decide bracket winners): March 31

Winners of each bracket will earn a spot in the 2026 World Cup, to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The main highlight is in Bracket A, where Italy, the four-time World Cup champions who failed to qualify in 2022, are set to face Northern Ireland in their opening match.

If they advance, Italy will meet the winner of Wales vs Bosnia and Herzegovina, meaning Italy may need to win two straight knockout matches to avoid repeating past disappointment.

Another highly anticipated matchup features Bracket B, where Ukraine will play against Sweden, a rematch of their 2022 playoff encounter (which Ukraine won 2–1), while Poland, led by the 38-year-old Robert Lewandowski in what could be his final World Cup campaign, waits on the other side of the bracket.

Brackets C and D are also packed with talent:

Nations such as Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, and Kosovo, featuring squads with 20+ players from Europe’s top leagues
While Bracket D includes Denmark, who have shown consistent form since Euro 2024, taking on North Macedonia, the same team that famously eliminated Italy in the 2022 playoffs

UEFA confirmed that the playoff winners will learn their final World Cup group placements immediately after the matches conclude on March 31, 2026, filling pre-allocated slots in the 2026 World Cup match schedule, which will be released in full in April next year.

This European playoff round not only decides the final four tickets to the World Cup, but also serves as a test for UEFA’s new qualification model—combining results from both World Cup Qualifiers and the UEFA Nations League—to determine whether it truly levels the playing field for mid-tier national teams.