The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to kick off on Thursday in Mexico City, Mexico. Forty-eight teams from nations as diverse as Uzbekistan and Curacao will compete for the enviable title of soccer’s world champion.
The tournament will begin by pitting the qualified nations against their peers in twelve groups of four teams apiece. Each group will play its fellow members once, earning three points for a win, one point each for a draw and zero points for a loss. The top two teams in each group after three games will advance to the knockout rounds; the eight third-placed teams with the strongest records will join them.
Here’s a breakdown of each group’s landscape and chances, starting with Mexico’s Group A, Canada’s Group B and Brazil’s Group C:
Group A: Mexico, South Africa, Korea Republic, Czechia
There are lots of interesting storylines playing out in Group A, but no storyline is bigger or more impactful than its climate. This group is one of just two at the World Cup that will bounce between high-elevation and regular-elevation venues during the tournament’s opening stages. Acclimatizing to Guadalajara (5100 feet) and Mexico City (7350 feet) is no joke, and the teams that manage it properly will have a huge advantage over their Group A peers.
That puts Mexico in an excellent position: it’s the only team playing all of its games at elevation, and its training camp is at elevation, too, so it won’t have to get itself up to high-altitude fitness from zero. South Africa and Korea are in the second-best position, with their high-elevation matches coming first and their low-elevation matches coming later. Czechia, though? It’s going to have to perform at altitude in Mexico City for Game 1, come down to earth (literally) in Atlanta for Game 2, then fly back to Mexico and re-acclimatize for Game 3. It’s a near-impossible physical ask for the poor Czechs.
With that in mind—plus Mexico’s home-field advantage and Korea’s fabulous attack led by LAFC’s Son Heung-min—it feels like there are two clear front-runners in this group. Mexico and Korea should dominate; South Africa and Czechia would do well to remain competitive.
Predicted to Advance: Mexico, Korea Republic