World Cup 2026 vs World Cup 2022: How the Tournament Has Changed

Direct comparison between Qatar 2022 and USA/Canada/Mexico 2026. Format changes, team count, match count, time zone impact for UK viewers and whether bigger means better.

The 2026 World Cup is going to look and feel almost nothing like the one we watched in Qatar. More teams, more matches, three host countries instead of one, and a calendar that drops the action smack in the middle of summer. Here's a side-by-side look at how the World Cup has changed in just four years, and what it means for fans watching in the UK.

From 32 to 48 teams: what changes?

The headline change between the 2026 and 2022 World Cups is the number of teams competing. At the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 32 teams were split into eight groups of four. The top two from each group went into a Round of 16 knockout. Simple, clean and the format every fan had grown up with.

The 2026 World Cup is bigger, with 48 teams across 12 groups of four. The top two from each group still progress, but they’ll be joined by the eight best third-placed teams in a brand new Round of 32. Only after that round do you reach the familiar Round of 16, quarter-finals, semis and final.

The expansion has opened the door for nations that would never have qualified under the old format. Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan are all making their World Cup debuts. The flip side is that some traditional powerhouses, including Italy, are still watching from home.

64 to 104 games: the viewing challenge

More teams mean more matches. The match count has jumped from 64 in Qatar to 104 in North America, a 62% increase. The tournament also runs for 39 days rather than 29, yet even with the longer schedule, daily football volume is significantly higher.

At the World Cup in Qatar, four group-stage matches were played each day across eight venues. The 2026 tournament will see up to six matches a day across 16 venues during the group phase. For UK fans, that means more clashes between fixtures and harder choices about which games to follow live versus which ones to catch on highlights.

It also means the World Cup is no longer something you can casually keep up with. Following the whole tournament now requires the kind of dedication usually reserved for Olympic Games viewers.

Qatar vs North America

Qatar was the most compact World Cup in modern history, with all eight stadiums within roughly 35 miles of central Doha. Fans could attend two matches in a single day without leaving the city limits.

The 2026 World Cup spans 16 host cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico, covering more than 4,000 miles from Vancouver in the west to Boston in the east. To make this manageable, FIFA has split the host cities into three regional clusters so most teams play their group-stage matches within one geographic area.

The November-December scheduling of Qatar 2022 was a one-off, forced by the heat in the Gulf. The 2026 tournament returns to its traditional summer slot, running from 11 June to 19 July. This is the first World Cup in North America since the 1994 tournament in the United States.

Time zones: when do matches kick off in the UK?

For UK fans, the time zone shift is one of the biggest changes. Qatar 2022 was an absolute viewing dream. Doha is three hours ahead of the UK, so matches kicked off at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm UK time. Most working fans could watch the late kick-off live and catch up with the rest in the evening.

2026 is a different story. Group games will kick off across a much wider window. Early matches in Mexico start around 5pm UK time, mid-afternoon Eastern Time games air around 8pm, and late kick-offs on the West Coast often land at 3am. England's Group L is being played mostly in the Eastern cluster, so most of their matches should be evening UK kick-offs, but anyone trying to follow Argentina or the US should be ready for some late nights.

Is a bigger World Cup a better World Cup?

The answer depends on who you ask. Critics argue that more teams will mean more lopsided games and a diluted group stage, with fewer must-watch fixtures in the early rounds. But supporters will point to the long-overdue representation for African and Asian nations and the romance and hype behind debut runs from sides like Cape Verde and Curaçao.

Either way, the 2026 World Cup is the biggest football tournament ever held, and one that football fans will be talking about long after the final whistle.

Summer football, all summer long

Whether the bigger format works or not, this is going to be a tournament unlike any we’ve seen before. Every match is a chance to fill another square on your card, every late kick-off another reason to stay up. Match Bingo runs live on every World Cup match this summer. 

Download now!