This World Cup will be participated by 36 countries from the previous 32 participants in the final round. This opens up opportunities for several countries to be able to taste their first World Cup. One that I follow is Asia. Asia will get more slots than usual, 8 countries + half that must go through the playoffs first. With this new format, of course several countries have very high motivation to be able to be in the 2026 World Cup. Asia itself is undergoing the 3rd qualifying round and still has several more matches left.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will actually feature 48 countries and not the 36 you said. That'll be the first time the competition will feature more than 32 teams and just like you rightly said, the new format gives room for participation from low ranked football nations. I'm more concerned about the African continent that's not been able produce a World Cup winner. Could this be an opportunity for an African country to conquer the world? I'll definitely love to see that happen and I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants that.
African countries has plenty of players who playing at European clubs but for National team unfortunately the quality of the teams from this continent is still below to European and South America teams and we might to see some of countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Segenal, Nigeria or Ivory Coast who can recognized as strong teams in Africa but unfortunately those teams cannot talk more in world cup and indeed on world cup 2022 we have seen Morocco can became an dark horses team who can able to advances to semifinal match but unfortunately Morocco journey have to stopped on that stage but on world cup 2026 i highly doubt Morocco can able to repeat this achievement