WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico will feature the largest field of nations ever, with 48 in total set to battle on North American shores.
With it comes the understandable question: Is bigger better?
Legendary ex-Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, now FIFA’s chief global officer, simply calls it the “natural evolution” of the competition; the same way it went from 13 teams in 1930 to 16 in 1934, to 24 in 1982, and to its most recent format of 32 teams in 1998.
Despite the expanding numbers, the results have remained the same. Only eight different nations have won a World Cup, and they have only come from Europe or South America.
“We want to make football global all over the world,” Wenger said on Thursday ahead of the 2026 World Cup Draw. “The target is to give a chance to other confederations to win the World Cup. We want to see an African team, an Asian team, we want to see CONCACAF (North America) win.”
More teams, however, tease an even further dilution of talent at the pinnacle of world soccer.
Curacao, which became the smallest country ever to qualify for a World Cup with a population of 185,000, is ranked 82nd in the FIFA world rankings. Fellow debutants Uzbekistan is 50th, Cape Verde is 63rd, and Jordan is 66th. Haiti, making only its second-ever World Cup appearance and first since 1970, ranks 84th in the world.
To suggest they can hang with some of the world’s best, whether it be Spain, France, or England, would strike many as disengenuous.
Not to Wenger.
“I was a bit scared before because maybe the difference between the teams would be too big,” he said. “But we realized, quality-wise, between the different countries has been reduced. Why? Because the message we give out and the work we do is to educate people. Education is correlated with success… At the end of the day, what we know is that success in football is not down to a [population]. Croatia played two times with 3 million people in a World Cup Final and in the semifinal. You look at Uzbekistan, you speak about Cape Verde, I know the job they do is fantastic. The infrastructure they’ve built is unbelievable. Jordan as well. They’re one of the surprising teams…
“Why is the [population] not important? It’s about the number of good players together to put the best with the best.”
This might be nothing more than a cash grab. More teams mean more games and an even larger boon in revenue for FIFA and the host nations.
But some of the most iconic moments at the World Cup have come from major upsets.
Senegal, ranked 42nd in the world, shocked the defending champions, France, in their opening match of the 2002 World Cup. A largely amateur United States squad shocked England in 1950. Cameroon upset the mighty Argentina in 1990, Costa Rica helped eliminate Italy in the group stage in 2014, and the 1998 tournament saw a pair of dizzying results when Norway beat Brazil, and Nigeria downed Spain.
Perhaps a few more famous results, such as those, await this edition of the World Cup in the United States this summer.
