Tournament complete: Spain won the 2026 World Cup on 19 July. These guides are kept as written, as a permanent record.
What lives here: the longer reads — season previews, gameweek prediction
write-ups, methodology explainers like how the Team of the Week is computed from official match
data, and guides to the game’s chemistry and drafting strategy. New pieces land through the
season, with gameweek recaps weekly once the football starts. Where a piece leans on data, the
sample size and source are stated in the piece itself.
Previews, rankings and how-to guides written for the 2026 World Cup — now a completed archive — then build your perfect XI free. Everything here was written by the person who builds Perfect Eleven, covering the 48-team 2026 tournament across the United States, Canada and Mexico: how the game's drafting and chemistry actually work, a tiered power ranking of every qualified nation, a group-by-group preview of all twelve groups, the best combined XI you can build from the real squads, and a guide to predicting the tournament's individual awards. Start with How to Play if you're new, or jump straight to your group.