World Cup 2026 Bracket

Twenty-two days, thirty-one matches, one trophy. The 2026 World Cup knockout phase opens on June 28 with the brand-new Round of 32 and ends at MetLife Stadium on July 19, 2026. With 48 teams in the field for the first time, this is a longer and more brutal bracket than any tournament before, and one upset in the early rounds can flip the entire half of the draw on its head.

The new format pulls 32 teams into the bracket: the top two from each of the 12 groups plus the eight best third-placed finishers ranked across all groups. That third-place lifeline is why a 1-1-1 group record can still send you through to the knockouts. Once the bracket starts, every game is single-elimination. Tied after 90 minutes? Thirty minutes of extra time. Still level? Penalties.

The bracket runs Round of 32 (June 28 to July 3), Round of 16 (July 4 to 7), Quarter-Finals (July 9 and 11), Semi-Finals (July 14 and 15), the Third Place playoff at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on July 18, and the Final at MetLife Stadium on July 19. MetLife is the largest venue in the tournament at 82,500 seats and was selected for the Final largely because of its capacity and proximity to JFK and Newark airports. Three quarter-final matches are slated for SoFi Stadium (Los Angeles), AT&T Stadium (Dallas), and Estadio Azteca (Mexico City), the last of which becomes the first venue ever to host matches in three different World Cups.

All match times shown below are Eastern Time (ET). If you are watching from the West Coast, subtract three hours. From Mexico Central (CT), subtract one. From the UK, add five. Between now and June 26 the bracket reads as placeholder team labels (1A, 2A, etc.). Once the group stage closes, those slots fill in automatically with the qualifying nations and the page updates with kickoff times, venues, and head-to-head context for every match.