From 13 to 48: the story of the World Cup's expansion
The World Cup began with 13 teams in 1930 and reaches 2026 with 48 and three host nations. This is how the planet's biggest tournament has grown edition by edition.
The 2026 World Cup brings together 48 teams across the United States, Mexico and Canada, with 104 matches and, for the first time, three host nations. It is the culmination of a growth that began almost a century earlier with a far more modest tournament.
The first World Cup, in Uruguay 1930, was played with just 13 teams and no qualifying round: entering and travelling was enough. In 1934 and 1938 the quota rose to 16, a number that, with the parenthesis of the Second World War and the withdrawals of 1950, stayed stable for decades.
The first great leap came in 1982, when the tournament went from 16 to 24 teams to make room for more countries from Africa, Asia and Concacaf. The second great widening was in 1998, with the arrival of 32 teams and the eight-groups-of-four format that has become familiar to several generations.
The 2026 format breaks every mould: 12 groups of four teams, from which the top two plus the eight best third-placed sides advance, forming a 32-team knockout phase that begins in the round of 32. Never before have so many nations competed at the same World Cup.
More teams means more stories: more debutants, more sets of fans and more corners of the planet represented. From those 13 pioneers of 1930 to the 48 of 2026, the World Cup has never stopped growing to become the most universal sporting event of all.
Source: Wikipedia (History of the FIFA World Cup; 2026 FIFA World Cup).