The 2026 foot­ball World Cup will not on­ly be the biggest in his­to­ry; it al­so looks set to be­come one of the

and am­bi­tious tour­na­ments FI­FA has ever or­gan­ised. From record­break­ing num­bers and ex­treme heat to a Su­per Bowl­style show, the 2026 World Cup is set to bear lit­tle re­sem­blance to any pre­vi­ous edi­tion.

Here are five un­usu­al fea­tures that will de­fine the tour­na­ment, to be held be­tween 11 June and 19 Ju­ly in the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and Mex­i­co.

1. First World Cup with 48 teams

For the first time, 48 teams will take part, up from the 32 at Qatar 2022. The new for­mat will fea­ture 12 groups of four teams and will in­crease the to­tal num­ber of match­es from 64 to 104.

The ex­pan­sion will al­so length­en the tour­na­ment, which will now run for 39 days. The re­vamped for­mat will al­so al­low more teams from Africa, Asia and CON­CA­CAF to qual­i­fy, as part of FI­FA'S at­tempt to broad­en the com­pe­ti­tion's glob­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

2. Three coun­tries to host the same World Cup

The Unit­ed States, Mex­i­co and Cana­da will share host­ing du­ties for the tour­na­ment for the first time. Nev­er be­fore has a men's World Cup been split be­tween three host na­tions.

In to­tal, there will be 16 host cit­ies across North Amer­i­ca, from Van­cou­ver to Mex­i­co City and Mi­a­mi. The Unit­ed States will stage most of the match­es, in­clud­ing all knock­out ties from the quar­ter-fi­nals on­wards.

3. The Azteca Sta­di­um will make his­to­ry

The Azteca Sta­di­um in Mex­i­co City will be­come the first venue to host match­es at three dif­fer­ent men's World Cups, af­ter the 1970 and 1986 edi­tions. The tour­na­ment will kick off there.

The Azteca al­so host­ed two of the most mem­o­rable World Cup fi­nals in his­to­ry, won by Pelé's Brazil in 1970 and by Maradon­a's Ar­genti­na in 1986. Pelé's lega­cy al­so re­mains very much alive at the sta­di­um: Mex­i­can au­thor­i­ties have re­cent­ly in­stalled a large stat­ue of the Brazil­ian out­side the ground ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Gi­ant Pele stat­ue in­stalled out­side sta­di­um ahead of 2026 World Cup

4. Heat, a con­cern for play­ers and ex­perts

One of the ma­jor talk­ing points around the 2026 World Cup will be not on­ly the foot­ball but al­so the weath­er.

A re­port by World Weath­er At­tri­bu­tion (WWA), an in­ter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic ini­tia­tive that stud­ies ex­treme weath­er events, warns that near­ly a quar­ter of the match­es could be played in po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous heat for play­ers and fans.

Cit­ies such as Mi­a­mi, Kan­sas City and Phil­adel­phia are among those most ex­posed to high tem­per­a­tures and hu­mid­i­ty dur­ing June and Ju­ly. FI­FA is al­ready con­sid­er­ing cool­ing breaks and oth­er pro­tec­tive mea­sures.

In an open let­ter co­or­di­nat­ed by the New Weath­er In­sti­tute think tank and the Cool Down Sport for Cli­mate Ac­tion net­work, ex­perts in health, sport­ing per­for­mance and cli­mate have warned that these breaks are 'too short to have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on re­hy­dra­tion and cool­ing the body'.

In their let­ter, ex­perts say that FI­FA'S cur­rent guide­lines on heat are 'im­pos­si­ble to jus­ti­fy' and have urged the fed­er­a­tion to ad­just them in line with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al Foot­baller­s' As­so­ci­a­tions (FIF­PRO).

Re­lat­ed Play­ers de­mand stronger safe­ty rules as ex­perts warn on World Cup heat

5. A World Cup ever more geared to­wards en­ter­tain­ment

FI­FA is al­so look­ing at in­tro­duc­ing a mu­si­cal per­for­mance dur­ing the half­time in­ter­val of the fi­nal, in­spired by for­mats com­mon at ma­jor US sports events such as the Su­per Bowl.

The fi­nal will be played at New Jer­sey's Met­life Sta­di­um, one of the Unit­ed States' ma­jor sport­ing ven­ues and a reg­u­lar stage for con­certs and larges­cale events.

A mu­si­cal per­for­mance is a first for a men's World Cup fi­nal, where en­ter­tain­ment has tra­di­tion­al­ly been con­cen­trat­ed be­fore kick-off or in the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­mon­ies.

Ac­cord­ing to FI­FA, artists such as Shaki­ra, Madon­na and South Ko­re­an group BTS will head­line the half-time show at the fi­nal, in a per­for­mance pro­duced to­geth­er with the or­gan­i­sa­tion Glob­al Cit­i­zen and fea­tur­ing Chris Mar­tin, the Cold­play front­man.