15 notable nations that missed out on the 2026 World Cup

The 2026 World Cup is the first to feature 48 nations. That’s a lot of teams! If not for the increase in 16 nations, we may not have gotten debutantes like Uzbekistan and Cape Verde, or the returns of Haiti or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, there are still plenty of nations that did not qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Some of them aren’t surprising. Yeah, San Marino wasn’t going to make it. There are a handful of notable teams that will not be in the 2026 World Cup, though, proving that qualifying is, indeed, still competitive.