The next World Cup takes place in 2026, and while the full 48-team tournament line-up won’t be known until over a year away, qualifiers are underway all over the globe. The BBC will show all men’s qualifying matches, including the Nations League quarter-finals, live.

In Europe, the top two teams in each group will qualify automatically, and a series of play-offs will decide the final four spots. The qualifying process is dominated by groups containing heavyweights such as Germany, France and Italy, and the likes of North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, San Marino and Moldova have struggled to make any headway.

Lionel Scaloni’s Argentina have a strong chance of qualifying from a tough Concacaf group, which features three hosts and six other nations. But with three of those places already claimed the remaining competition is intense and whoever finishes seventh will go into an inter-confederation play-off.

In the knockout phase of qualifying, a series of ties are played over two legs. Typically, the team that scores more goals over both legs wins, but if both sides score an equal number of points, tiebreakers are used, usually involving head-to-head comparison and goal difference. If these fail to settle the matter, extra time and penalty shootouts are often used. In the case of the aforementioned play-offs, there are a further set of rules that apply. The winner of each tie will qualify for the World Cup. The runners-up in the play-offs will join the top-ranked seventh-placed side in the intercontinental playoffs.