A misunderstanding for everyone, or almost. During the draw for the 2026 World Cup, French supporters thought they would inherit Uzbekistan in hat 3. After drawing Senegal in hat 2 and while Shaquille O’Neal drew the team which was to face France, Uzbekistan, out, was finally sent to the group with Portugal. And in the end, France inherited the best team in this hat 3: Norway. But why then when the rule prohibiting having two countries from the same continent (outside Europe) in a group did not apply?
Well for a very simple reason. The placement of Uzbekistan in this group would have precisely blocked the rule of two teams from a continent… for the draw of hat 4. Quite simply because the winner of the play-off between Iraq, Bolivia and Suriname had to necessarily go into a group with two European countries and an African country to keep the balance of the continents. There was only the France group which could therefore correspond to this criterion since in this case, Bolivia could not go with Colombia (group K from Portugal) and Suriname with Panama (group L with England). Norway therefore had to go with the Blues so that there would be a group with two Europeans and one African.
