World Cup 2026 Group Stage Reaches Historic Milestone

FIFA claimed that the group stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 ended with a record-breaking attendance of 4.6 million across first 72 matches of tournament.

In the first 17 days of the the tournament across 16 host cities, expanded into 48 teams for the first time, 4,644,549 people who attended the matches to the 300,000 hot dogs consumed.

"To put that into perspective, if all the hot dogs sold were lined up end to end, they would span the roughly 28 miles (45 kilometres) between New York New Jersey Stadium and JFK International Airport," FIFA said in an official communique.

Among the 1,248 players who represented 48 nations — 999 of whom played in the group stage.

Of the 32 teams that have qualified, 13 are from Europe, nine are from Africa, five are from South America, three are from CONCACAF, and two are from Asia.

It is the first time that more than two African nations reached the knockout round of a FIFA World Cup.

In 2014, there were two CAF teams (Algeria and Nigeria), and in 2022, there were two more (Morocco and Senegal).

Only once before have there been three Concacaf representatives in the knockout stage: in 2014, when Costa Rica, Mexico and the USA made it through their respective groups.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cabo Verde, Canada, Congo DR, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt and South Africa have all qualified for the knockout phase of the World Cupfor the first time.