Who: Ukraine vs FranceWhat: UEFA qualifiers for 2026 FIFA World CupWhere: Tarczynski Arena Wroclaw in Wroclaw, PolandWhen: Friday, September 5, at 8:45pm (19:45 GMT)How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 5:45pm (16:45 GMT) in advance of our live text commentary stream.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listEuropean football’s focus switches to qualifying for the 2026 World Cup for the next two weeks, but that is only the beginning of an 11-week period in which six games each will be played to help decide who advances to the tournament.The European qualifying programme involves 54 teams but 24 of them are only kicking a ball for the first time on their intended road to play on football’s biggest stage in the United States, Canada and Mexico starting next year on June 11.France, the 2018 World Cup winner, starts its qualifying campaign for the 2026 edition away against Ukraine in Les Bleus’ first game in the competition since losing an epic final against Argentina in December 2022 at the Qatar World Cup.Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at Ukraine’s game against France and explains why so many of the teams are only joining qualifying now.Why is Ukraine vs France being played in Poland?Ukraine will host that game in Wroclaw in neutral Poland because of security concerns at home during the Russian military invasion.Russia’s teams were banned by UEFA and FIFA from all international competitions in February 2022 when the war began.Why have France not played any World Cup qualifiers yet?France, along with 23 other teams, are only joining the qualifying programme for the World Cup now due to the progress of some of the top seeds in the 2025 Nations League, which culminated in June. Advertisement Portugal were crowned champions as they beat Spain 5-3 on penalties in the 2025 final in this year’s final.Spain overcame France in the semifinal, while Portugal beat Germany. The rest of the qualifiers for the latter stages of that tournament are also only entering the World Cup qua …
