Foreign Coaches Lead Majority Of Teams At 2026 World Cup

ISTANBUL, June 9 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- Foreign coaches will outnumber local counterparts at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the first edition of the tournament to feature 48 teams and be hosted by the United States (US), Canada and Mexico, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.

Of the 48 head coaches competing in the tournament, 28 will be foreign nationals, while 20 will be nationals of the countries they represent.

The influence of foreign coaches will be particularly visible among European managers.

Seven European foreign coaches will be leading national teams from other countries, while Europe will provide a total of 20 coaches working outside their home nations.

Panama, South Africa, Austria, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Portugal, Uruguay, New Zealand, Türkiye, Algeria, Haiti, Canada, Jordan, Ecuador, Paraguay, the US, England, Belgium, Qatar, Iraq, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Sweden, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Curacao have opted for foreign head coaches at the 2026 World Cup.

France, Croatia, Japan, Argentina, Scotland, Cape Verde, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Iran, Germany, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Senegal and Czechia, meanwhile, will be led by head coaches from their own countries.

Argentina will be the most represented nationality among head coaches at the World Cup.

The group of Argentine coaches — Nestor Lorenzo, Lionel Scaloni, Marcelo Bielsa, Sebastian Beccacece, Gustavo Alfaro and Mauricio Pochettino — will be followed by France with five coaches, Spain with four, and Germany and Italy with three each.

Julian Nagelsmann, head coach of Germany, will be the youngest coach at the World Cup.

Nagelsmann, 38, who succeeded Hansi Flick and led Germany at the 2024 European Championship, will experience his first World Cup as a head coach.

At the other end of the age scale, 78-year-old Dutch coach Dick Advocaat, who guided Curacao to its first World Cup appearance, will be the oldest coach at the tournament.

Advocaat will be appearing at the World Cup for the third time in his coaching career.

The teams led by Nagelsmann and Advocaat are scheduled to meet in the opening Group E match at Houston Stadium.

The average age of the 48 head coaches is 57.3 years, up 5.4 years from Qatar 2022.

Two of the 48 coaches at the 2026 World Cup have previously won the tournament.

France head coach Didier Deschamps and Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni have each lifted the trophy once.

Deschamps guided France to the title in 2018, while Scaloni led Argentina to victory at Qatar 2022 after defeating France in the final.

Should either coach win the title again in 2026, they would equal the record of Italy's Vittorio Pozzo, the only coach to win two World Cup titles.

Deschamps also won the World Cup as a player when France hosted and won the 1998 tournament.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU