Today at noon Macedonian time the qualifying draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup took place in Zurich, Switzerland.
The seeding were made regarding the November FIFA rankings and Macedonia was put in the third pot. Spanish legend Fernando Llorente was drawing the balls from our pot and drew our national team into a group of 5 teams where previously were drawn Belgium and Wales. Later were added Kazakhstan and Liechtenstein.
Group J
Belgium
Wales
Macedonia
Kazakhstan
Liechtenstein
The Lynx will start the qualifiers in March 2025, and will end in November the same year. The complete schedule for our group was revealed later on Friday.
The qualifying group stage features 12 groups of 4 or 5 teams. The winner of each group will qualify for the 2026 World Cup, while the runners-up will advance to the play-offs, along with the 4 best-ranked group winners from the 2024/25 UEFA Nations League that finished outside the top two of their World Cup qualifying group.
Past encounters:
vs. 
Belgium (G4 W0 D1 L3 GD 1:9)
16.11.1994 1:1 draw (match report) Q
07.06.1995 0:5 defeat (match report) Q
22.03.2013 0:2 defeat (match report) Q
26.03.2013 0:1 defeat (match report) Q
vs. 
Wales (G2 W1 D0 L1 GD 2:2)
06.09.2013 2:1 win (match report) Q
11.10.2013 0:1 defeat (match report) Q
vs. 
Kazakhstan (G1 W1 D0 L0 GD 4:0)
04.06.2021 4:0 win (match report) F
vs. 
Liechtenstein (G11 W10 D1 L0 GD 42:5)
24.04.1996 3:0 win (match report) Q
09.11.1996 11:1 win (match report) Q
08.09.2002 1:1 draw (match report) Q
07.06.2003 3:1 win (match report) Q
12.11.2005 2:1 win (match report) F
24.03.2017 3:0 win (match report) Q
09.10.2017 4:0 win (match report) Q
13.10.2018 4:1 win (match report) NL
16.11.2018 2:0 win (match report) NL
28.03.2021 5:0 win (match report) Q
08.10.2021 4:0 win (match report) Q