Friday's World Cup draw to reveal only half the story

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 : The 2026 World Cup draw will take place at 1700GMT on Friday and though the 42 nations assured of their slot will have to wait more than an hour to discover their opponents, they will have to wait another 24 to find out where and when they will be playing.

The draw at Washington's Kennedy Center will be preceded by a glitz-rich show dripping in VIPs, with the expected presentation of FIFA's new peace prize to President Donald Trump vying with live shows by Andrea Bocelli and the Village People for top billing.

Once that is all out of the way, the allocation of groups for the expanded 48-team competition will begin at around 1800GMT.

A newly-introduced seeding system ensures that the current top four in the world - Spain, holders Argentina, 2022 runners-up France and England - cannot meet until the semi-final stage if they win their groups.

The 48 teams - including six still-to-be-decided playoff winners - will be divided into 12 groups of four to produce a mammoth 104 match schedule across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The three host nations are all in Pot One of top seeds, along with the four above, Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

At the other end of the scale, Pot Four includes debutants Cape Verde, Uzbekistan, Jordan and Curacao, which, with a population of 150,000, is by far the smallest nation ever to take part in a World Cup.

Once the groups have been decided, FIFA will get to work trying to optimise venues and kickoff times relating to the various worldwide TV markets.

In many cases that will lead to afternoon kickoffs in high temperatures, with lip-service about player welfare being paramount ringing as true as they did last time the U.S. hosted the