The draw for the 2026 World Cup starts the official buildup to next years’ tournament. Find out who Bafana Bafana will face in next years’ showcase of world football (assuming old Donny Boy approves their visa applications of course.)
Final Draw | FIFA World Cup 2026™ - YouTube
Live updates as the draw happens on the official WC2026 site:
https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/live-draw
More details at FIFA World Cup 2026™.
Bafana Bafana get to open the tournament against co-hosts Mexico in Mexico City on 11 June!
Team 4 in Group A will be the eventual European Play-Off D winner: Republic of Ireland vs Czechia; Denmark vs North Macedonia; and the winner between those winners. Either way, on a good day, South Africa could manage at least one win and one draw in the group stages. At least.
Their toughest match will be the opener against Mexico. The match happens in the Estadio Azteca Mexico City (renamed simply Mexico City Stadium for the tournament because “Spanish hard, not American” I guess?). It’s going to be 86,000+ Mexicans versus a handful of South Africans.
First thing I did was rewatch one of my most watched YouTube videos!
2010 RSA vs Mexico:
im here to send some German love
Yeah it’s going a tough opener. Though I’m happy with the grouping. Let’s hope we get close to the top 16 or even go through into knockout. Gonna be lekker World Cup. Looking forward to it.
Ah, the days when the celebrations were more rehearsed than the set moves…
Just watched that again… GOOSEBUMPS I TELL YA!!!
Right?! I watch it a few times a year and it always has that effect.
Uhh, hello. Bafana Bafana through to the knockout round of a World Cup for the first time ever?! 
And we thought Coach Broos was being a dummy after that disastrous opening match against Mexico.
Just our luck that we land up in our first knock out match against another of the joint hosts, Canada. 
@murfle, you know we like you and all, but this is more important for us. Your guys can go play hockey or something. Tell your people to let us have this one.
I’m absolutely buzzing! I can’t believe it. I feel like we’ve always been in tough groups, so it’s nice to finally get out of one!
Yeah I don’t know who bet on us, but the odds were definitely against us. All groups have had surprising outcomes throughout this World Cup thus far. It’s been entertaining.
I’m sad that our run ended on Sunday, but still proud of the effort! There was a real sense of unity, joy and pride.
Some shocking results from early this morning 
Yeah, i share the sentiments.
Really surprised Germany and Netherlands are out of the showing. I don’t like it when games go to penalties for this reason. It just feels so 50/50, but happy to see more underdogs progress further into the competition.
Using his stats and formulas - this guy correctly predicted the winner of the world cup. Some really interesting stats actually.
Note that this video was published on 18 June.
Let’s see if his formula works for the next one.
Oh right, NOW you share it with us AFTER the World Cup has concluded along with our inter-office prediction competition.
I think the only reason it showed in my feed yesterday was that the video went viral after the finals. Better subscribe so you’re prepared for the next world cup.
Well I led the predictors right up until the semi-finals weekend (the weekend I went away) where I made predictions but didn’t invest much into the results. Since then I maintained a second place and narrowed the gap with the final prediction but finished in the same spot.
That was quite interesting! I thought it would be something more complex honestly. Many things just seem like coincidence.
For example, the Ballon d’Or award being a factor is itself subject to the whims of the voters and criteria.
The most ‘meaty’ stat is having 15 wins in the WC. This makes sense, as it shows history and pedigree of that country, and their ability to maintain a team that can compete over many iterations of the competition.
[edit]
I also just realised that this year’s competition had more teams 48 vs 32. There’s also talk of expanding that further in the next one. It would be interesting to see whether this ‘breaks’ the formula.
