I was pretty meh on the pool play format given two teams of five advancing in each pool, which felt like it was going to water down the proceedings a bit... but I ended up really enjoying the days of wall-to-wall pool play.
GROUP PLAY (Feb 11-15): The 12 countries play a round-robin within their respective groups, with three games per team. Teams earn three points for a regulation win, two points for overtime or shootout wins, one point for overtime or shootout losses, and zero points for regulation losses. GROUP A: Canada, Czechia, France. Switzerland GROUP B: Finland, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden GROUP C: Denmark, Germany, Latvia, United States
The climax of the new 12-team competition, which will be held every two years and replaces traditional tours, will be held at Twickenham at the end of November with two matches on Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Six Nations form guide: how the 2026 contenders are shaping up The six Tests pit the sixth-place finisher in the northern hemisphere pool against the sixth in the southern hemisphere pool, the fifth against the fifth and so on, culminating in the first against the first.
Arsenal are world champions. It's a weird thing to say about the team fourth in the WSL, albeit with a game in hand, and who failed to qualify automatically for the Champions League quarter-finals and face a two-leg knockout phase playoff. However, the 3-2 defeat of the Copa Libertadores champions, Corinthians, by the Uefa Champions League holders secured their global title.
The World Cup draw on Friday will separate 48 teams (and placeholders) into 12 groups of four teams each. Each team will play three games in the group stage, one against every team in its group. The top two teams in each group advance to the knockout stage, as in previous years. But the expansion of the tournament from 32 teams will create an additional round of knockout matches.
It really did happen, you know. Scotland are going to the 2026 World Cup. Maybe it will all feel real when Heidi Klum and Kevin Hart begin co-hosting duties at Friday's draw? Hmm, probably not. What about when the Village People take their turn to perform on stage? Or Robbie Williams? Or Andrea Bocelli? Or Nicole Scherzinger? Guess we will have to wait for some famous former footballer to awkwardly crack open a small plastic ball to reveal 'Scotland' on an unfolded piece of paper for it all to sink in.
Over two days, Iowa State defeated St. John's, the reigning Big East champion, on Monday and then dominated Creighton by 18 points a day later, despite playing without star Tamin Lipsey. Yet, the Cyclones were matched Wednesday against Syracuse, which had lost both of its games in Las Vegas, because Iowa State's overall margin of victory (plus-19) wasn't sufficient enough to earn a spot in the championship or third-place games.
This new format will see each qualifier placed into one of four pots, which will be based on their FIFA ranking. Teams will then be drawn one at a time, cycling between pots one to four, with a computer placing them into a random group, which takes into account any geographical restrictions, for example, that no countries from the same confederation can be in the same group, except UEFA, which can have two teams in a group.
