The most iconic, the most viewed and followed sporting event of all time is nearly round the corner and we are all set for the draw. You are at the right place to find everything about the World Cup. From booking tickets, to how to watch the event, we have got everything covered.
Date, Time and Venue of the event
The draw will take place on Friday, 5 December 2025.
Venue: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., USA.
Kick-off time: 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET), 11:30 PM IST (Indian Standard Time)
Where to watch the event?
The draw will be available on the official FIFA channels, via the official website or FIFA’s YouTube channel.
Procedure of the draw
For the 1st time ever, 48 nations will play in the World Cup. There will be a Pot System. There will be 4 pots with 12 nations each. The teams drawn from the pot will be placed in 12 groups of 4 (A–L).
How pot number is decided for each team?
1. POT 1
Pot 1 always contains the host nation. For the 1st time ever, 3 nations are hosting the FIFA World Cup. Hence Canada, Mexico and USA are automatically in this pot.
The Top 7 teams in FIFA/Coca-Cola Men’s World Ranking(last update- 19 November, 2025).
So here are the 12 nations who are placed in Pot 1
United States (host), Mexico(host),Canada(host), Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany
2. POT 2
Pot 2 will feature the next 12 highest-ranked teams. These are –
Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, IR Iran, Korea Republic, Ecuador, Austria, Australia
3. POT 3
Pot 3 will feature the next 12 highest-ranked teams. These are –
Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
4. POT 4
Pot 4 will feature the next 6 highest-ranked teams+ Play-off Placeholders. As per the latest update, 42 out of 48 spots are booked and for the remaining 6 places, Play-off placeholders will be played.These are the scheduled matches for Play-off placeholders.
These are the 12 teams for pot 4-
Jordan, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, UEFA Play-off Winner A, UEFA Play-off Winner B, UEFA Play-off Winner C, UEFA Play-off Winner D, Inter-confed Play-off Winner 1, Inter-confed Play-off Winner 2
Deciding group for each team from each pot
There are 12 groups of 4 (A–L). There are certain rules made for 2 teams to be drawn in the same group. These rules are made to avoid certain clashes of nations from the same region. These rules are as follows –
- Each group must have teams from different pots.
- Each group will not havetwo teams from the same continent, except Europe (because it has many teams). This directly implies that there will be only 1 nation in 1 group from these tournament qualifiers- AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF, CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania).
Hence you won’t see Brazil and Argentina or Morocco and Senegal for example in the same group.
- Each group will have 4 teams with a rank wise name. For example – Group A will have A1, A2, A3, A4. Similarly Group B1, B2, B3, B4 and the same method for other groups too.
- There will be a maximum of 2 teams from Europein the same group. Hence combinations like France and Portugal or Spain and Turkey for instance are possible in the same group.
- The highest and the 2nd highest ranked teams will be drawn into the groups which are in the opposite pathways so that top teams don’t clash before the final.
Therefore Spain(1st) and Argentina(2nd) will be in opposite pathways.
The same procedure will be done for the 3rd and 4th highest ranked teams too. Therefore France(3rd) and England(4th) will be in the opposite pathway.
- The entire group selection will be done by thecomputer. However team names drawn from the pot will be done by the invited guest.
How is the group number decided?
- The group for the host countries has already been decided on 4th February, 2024. Mexico(green ball)is assigned to A1, Canada(red ball) is assigned to B1 and USA(blue ball) is assigned to
The remaining 9 teams of pot 1 will be assigned the same color and will be allotted 1st position of remaining groups like C1, E1, F1, G1, H1, J1, K1, L1.
- After all teams have been drawn from pot 1, teams from pot 2,3,4 will be assigned the groups with a predetermined pattern which you can understand from this image.
This was the complete guide of how the draw will take place on 5th December, 2025. Grab your popcorn and get ready for the kickstart of the biggest sporting pinnacle of Earth.
