FIFA World Cup 2026WC 2026

About

FIFA World Cup 2026 hub

A fan-built site to follow the tournament — live-style fixtures, standings, teams, and knockouts from real API data — plus a separate prediction simulator to play out your own bracket. Not affiliated with FIFA.

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What you will find

Each section below is a page in the nav. The main site shows real tournament data from the API (refreshed on a schedule). The simulator is entertainment only and does not change official results.

  • Home — Hero slider (promo + upcoming favorite / high-voltage matches), match feed with stage filters, sidebar countdowns for starred teams, and quick links into the hub.
  • Favorites — Star nations in the navbar search; see only their fixtures, results, and kickoff countdowns in one place (stored in your browser).
  • Hub — Full tournament view: all 12 group tables, calendar of fixtures, finished results, and the knockout bracket (Round of 32 through Final).
  • Teams — Every qualified nation, searchable and sorted by FIFA ranking snapshot; open a team for squad list and player photos where available.
  • Match detail — Open any fixture for scoreline, events timeline, and match statistics (from the API when the match has been played).
  • Tournament prediction simulator — Your own scores for every group game and knockout tie; see predicted standings, qualifiers, and champion (details below).

Match times & countdowns

Kickoff dates, clock times, and live countdowns use your device's local timezone and locale — not a fixed stadium zone. Someone in Bangladesh and someone in London will see the same match at different local times, each correct for where they are. Official kickoff instants come from the API as UTC; your browser converts them for display.

Extras across the site

  • High voltage — Knockout ties and clashes between top-ranked nations (from a local FIFA ranking snapshot) are highlighted.
  • Light / dark theme — Toggle in the bottom corner; preference is remembered in the browser.
  • Team search — Find a country quickly from the navbar.

Tournament prediction simulator

Open the simulator to run a full what-if tournament. It uses the real group-stage schedule from the API but your entered scores for everything else — it is not linked to live or final World Cup results.

Group stage

  • Groups A–L with every group match and score inputs.
  • Live predicted standings per group (points, goal difference, goals for, and head-to-head among tied teams).
  • A third-place table ranking all 12 group runners-up in 3rd; the top 8 are highlighted as predicted Round of 32 qualifiers.
  • Reset Group Xclears only that group's scores.

Knockout stage

  • Unlocks after every group match has a complete score. Tabs: Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarter-finals, Semi-finals, Final.
  • Later rounds appear as soon as both teams are known — you do not need to finish an entire round first.
  • Draws after 90 minutes can be decided with a penalties checkbox and pen scores.
  • On the Final tab: the final plus a 3rd place play-off between semi-final losers (when both semis have a result).
  • Reset [round] clears that round and all later rounds. Separate Reset 3rd place on the Final tab.

Smart resets when you edit scores

  • Change a group result → the entire knockout stage is cleared (qualifiers may change).
  • Change a knockout winner → all matches that depend on that fixture are cleared (same path as the bracket tree).

Saving your work

  • Predictions are stored in localStorage in this browser for 60 days, then expire automatically.
  • Reset all wipes group and knockout predictions and starts over.

Bracket pairings in the simulator use a simplified entertainment seeding model, not necessarily the official FIFA 2026 draw path. Use it for fun, not as a forecast of the real tournament.

Technology

Framework
Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, Tailwind CSS
UI
Custom components, Lucide icons, Swiper (home hero), light/dark via @teispace/next-themes
Typography
Playfair Display & Inter via Google Fonts
Caching
ISR and on-disk API cache (data/api-cache/) to stay within API limits; warm with npm run cache:warm

Data & API

  • Zafronix World Cup API — Fixtures, standings, team rosters, match events and statistics, knockout bracket. Requires an API key in .env.local.
  • Local FIFA ranking snapshot — data/fifa-rankings.json for high-voltage and team ordering (manual update; not live FIFA data).

Squads, logos, and live stats depend on the upstream feed and may be incomplete or delayed for some teams.

Credits & third-party resources

Thank you to the projects and creators whose work powers or decorates this site. Please respect their licenses and terms of use.

Match & team data

  • Zafronix — Tournament fixtures, standings, teams, and match detail.

Images

  • Unsplash and Pexels — Football-only hero banner photos (Unsplash License, Pexels License). Curated list in data/hero-promo-images.json.
  • Team and player imagery from API responses; many player cutouts reference TheSportsDB URLs in data/player-photos.json (captain / promo figures on the home hero when available).
  • National flags and badges as provided by the data API.

Open-source libraries

Fonts

Developed by

niranyousf — AHM Yousuf Niran

Design, development, and maintenance of this project. Questions or bugs: reach out via the site above or on social:

Source code — github.com/niranyousuf/fifa-wc-2026

This site is an unofficial fan project. FIFA, World Cup, and related marks are trademarks of their respective owners. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.