ENGLAND kick off their journey to the 2026 World Cup at Wembley tonight.
Three Lions are hot favourites to win Group K over Albania, Latvia, Serbia and Andorra — but, after Fifa expanded the finals to 48 teams, qualifying is different.
England begin their World Cup qualifying campaign at home to Albania on Friday[/caption]
Thomas Tuchel will almost certainly be handed a lifeline if England fail to qualify[/caption]
Europe will have 16 nations at the event, up from 13 under the 32-team format, with 12 qualifying groups — six of four teams and six, including England’s, with five.
But the top seeds will be finalised by the outcome of this week’s Nations League A quarter-finals with the four winners — plus the losers of Portugal’s tie with Denmark — going into the four-team groups to be played over three months from September.
Five-team groups start tonight until November.
Only the 12 group winners qualify automatically, with runners-up joining the best four non-qualifiers from the Nations League in a play-off.
England and Wales won their Nations League pools so are virtually sure of a back-up path to the play-offs if they miss out on the top two.
Africa is the biggest beneficiary of expansion with nine automatic slots instead of five, while Asia has eight instead of four with Japan’s 2-0 win over Bahrain yesterday booking their place.
Six South American teams — previously four — go through and Oceania has a direct route to the finals for the first time.
USA, Canada and Mexico qualify as hosts and there are three slots for the Concacaf region of North and Central America and the Caribbean.
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The last two places will be decided by a six-nation play-off of two Concacaf sides and one from each of the other confederations — but not Uefa.
The Three Lions kick off qualifying against Albania at Wembley on Friday, before hosting Latvia on Monday.
Thomas Tuchel‘s side will travel to Andorra in early June before a friendly at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground with Senegal.
The remaining qualifiers will be completed in the early months of the 2025/26 season.
