World Cup Round of 16 Draw: Who Plays Who and When the Knockouts Resume

World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026:

The Round of 32 is done. Eight winners went home disappointed this week, and the World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026 is now fully locked in. No more guessing, no more “if this team wins” brackets. Sixteen teams, eight matches, four days, and a straight run to the quarter-finals.

For UK viewers, this is the stretch where the tournament stops being background noise and starts eating into sleep. Three of the eight last-16 ties kick off after midnight BST, which means the real question isn’t just who plays who. It’s how you’re going to watch without your stream dying at 1 am on a work night.

Here’s the full picture: every fixture, every kick-off time, every channel, and what’s coming next once the last-16 dust settles.

Watching the knockouts on a laptop screen with a buffering wheel spinning at 1 am isn’t a great experience. Start a free ZumTV trial and get every match on the big screen instead, wherever you’re set up.

World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026 Fixtures: Full Schedule

Here’s the complete World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026, with UK kick-off times and confirmed broadcasters.

Saturday 4 July

• Canada vs Morocco, 6:00 pm BST, Houston (ITV)
• Paraguay vs France, 10:00 pm BST, Philadelphia (BBC)

Sunday 5 July

• Brazil vs Norway, 9:00 pm BST, New Jersey (ITV)

Monday 6 July

• Mexico vs England, 1:00 am BST, Mexico City (BBC)
• Portugal vs Spain, 8:00 pm BST, Dallas (BBC)

Tuesday 7 July

• USA vs Belgium, 1:00 am BST, Seattle (BBC)
• Argentina vs Egypt, 5:00 pm BST, Atlanta (ITV)
• Switzerland vs Colombia, 9:00 pm BST, Vancouver (ITV)

That’s four games apiece for BBC and ITV, which is roughly the split they’ve run since the group stage. Every fixture is free-to-air. Nobody needs a login they don’t already have to watch a single minute of this round.

Why This Round Has Three Overnight Kick-Offs

Blame the time difference, not the broadcasters. Three of the eight last-16 matches are being played in North American evening slots that land after midnight back home. Mexico vs England is the one most UK fans will actually stay up for, an 8 pm kick-off in Mexico City that becomes a 1 am start on a Monday. The USA vs. Belgium does the same thing a night later.

This is the exact scheduling pattern that’s defined the tournament since the group stage: brilliant football, terrible timing for anyone who has work in the morning. Plenty of UK viewers missed group-stage matches simply because they nodded off before kick-off or gave up mid-match when a stream started stuttering. The knockout stakes are higher now. Extra time and penalties are both live possibilities in every last-16 tie, which means a 1 am kick-off can easily run past 3 am before a winner is decided.

There’s also the multi-room problem. If Mexico vs. England falls at 1 am on a Monday and you’ve got work at 8, chances are not everyone in the house wants to watch it live in the same room, or at all. Being able to catch the match on a phone or tablet after everyone else has gone to bed, without fighting over the one TV downstairs, matters more during this kind of overnight slate than it did during the more sociable evening kick-offs earlier in the tournament.

If your stream has been dropping out during the late kick-offs, that’s usually a router or connection issue rather than the broadcaster’s fault. Here’s how to fix IPTV buffering on UK broadband before the next 1 am kick-off catches you out.

The Standout Ties

A few of these fixtures are doing more work than “just” deciding a quarter-final spot.

Portugal vs. Spain pits Cristiano Ronaldo against Lamine Yamal, two players separated by close to two decades but level on ambition this summer. Ronaldo scored his first World Cup knockout goal in the last round before Portugal snatched the win in stoppage time. Spain arrives fresher after a comfortable win over Austria.

Brazil vs Norway is the Vinícius Júnior versus Erling Haaland fixture; nobody wanted to see this early. Haaland has been directly involved in five of Norway’s nine goals so far and is the single biggest threat standing between Brazil and the last eight.

Mexico vs. England is the co-host storyline. Mexico haven’t reached a World Cup quarter-final since they hosted the tournament in 1986. England is chasing a first title since 1966 and has made the last 16 in eight straight World Cups, so recent history favours Thomas Tuchel’s side, but a raucous Estadio Azteca crowd is nothing.

Argentina vs. Egypt puts Lionel Messi’s likely final World Cup up against Mohamed Salah, who’s already gone the distance once in this tournament in a penalty shootout to get here.

Canada vs. Morocco and USA vs. Belgium carry a different kind of weight. Both co-host nations are through to a stage neither has reached comfortably before, and both know a loss here ends the run in front of a home or near-home crowd. Morocco, by contrast, has been here before. Their run to the semi-finals in Qatar four years ago means this Atlas Lions squad arrives with a composure that newer World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026 knockout stage sides simply don’t have yet.

What Happens After the World Cup Round of 16 Draw 2026

Once these eight matches are done, the bracket moves straight into the quarter-finals, with no rest days built in for fans keeping score. Here’s the current shape of what’s coming:

• Thursday 9 July: Paraguay/France vs Canada/Morocco
• Friday 10 July: Portugal/Spain vs USA/Belgium
• Saturday 11 July: Brazil/Norway vs Mexico/England, and the fourth quarterfinal
• The semi-finals follow on 14 and 15 July
• The final is set for Sunday 19 July at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey

We’ll update this piece with confirmed quarter-final matchups, venues and UK kick-off times as soon as all eight last-16 results are in. Bookmark this page rather than searching again in four days, since the bracket will fill itself in here.

Eight matches, four days, three of them past midnight. Sign up for ZumTV’s free trial and set up multi-room streaming now so you’re not scrambling to find a working stream five minutes before Mexico vs England kicks off.