Identifying 6 South American teams that have qualified for the 2026 World Cup

Paraguay players celebrate their ticket to the 2026 World Cup

South America is considered the region with the most “tough” World Cup qualifying round besides Africa. Teams must play a total of 18 matches, calculating the ranking points to find the owners of the tickets to the biggest football festival on the planet.

This year, the 2026 World Cup qualifiers are less harsh as South America is allocated 6 official tickets and 1 play-off ticket. Before the 17th round of matches, five teams had secured early tickets including Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia. Today, the last official ticket has been determined. That is Paraguay.

At home, Paraguay held Ecuador to a 0-0 draw while their main rival Venezuela lost 3-0 to Argentina. After 17 matches, Paraguay has 25 points, 7 more than Venezuela and is sure to be in the top 6 of the South American qualifying round.

After the match, coach Gustavo Alfaro and his players had an emotional celebration with the home fans. This is understandable, because Paraguay has been absent from the last 3 World Cups after reaching the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup.

In addition to the six teams mentioned above, South America can still have another representative at the 2026 World Cup through the intercontinental play-off. The play-off position is a competition between Venezuela (18 points) and Bolivia (17 points). In the final match, Venezuela faces Colombia at home, while Bolivia welcomes Brazil.

South American World Cup 2026 qualifying standings