2018 FIFA World Cup

The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be the 21st FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. It is scheduled to take place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights on 2 December 2010.

This will be the first World Cup held in Europe since the 2006 tournament in Germany, and the first ever to be held in Eastern Europe. All of the stadium venues are in European Russia, to keep travel time manageable.

The final tournament will involve 32 national teams, which include 31 teams determined through qualifying competitions and the automatically qualified host team. Of the 32 teams, 20 will be making back-to-back appearances following the last tournament in 2014, including defending champions Germany, while Iceland and Panama will both be making their first appearances at a FIFA World Cup. A total of 64 matches will be played in 12 venues located in 11 cities. The final will take place on 15 July at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

Of the 12 venues used, the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow and the Saint Petersburg Stadium (the two largest stadiums in Russia) will be used most, with 7 matches being played at each of these stadiums. Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novogrod and Samara will host 6 matches including one quarter-final match apiece, and the Otkrytiye Stadium in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don will host 5 matches apiece including one round of 16 match each. Volgograd, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg and Saransk will host 4 matches each and none of these cities will host any knockout stage games.

Moscow		Saint Petersburg	Sochi
Luzhniki Stadium	Otkritie Arena (Spartak Stadium)	Krestovsky Stadium (Saint Petersburg Stadium)	Fisht Olympic Stadium (Fisht Stadium)
Capacity: 81,000	Capacity: 45,360	Capacity: 68,134	Capacity: 47,659
Samara	Moscow Saint Petersburg Kaliningrad Nizhny Novgorod Kazan Samara Volgograd Saransk Sochi Rostov-on-Don Yekaterinburg		Kazan
Cosmos Arena (Samara Arena)			Kazan Arena
Capacity: 44,918			Capacity: 45,379
Rostov-on-Don			Volgograd
Rostov Arena			Volgograd Arena
Capacity: 45,000			Capacity: 45,568
Nizhny Novgorod	Saransk	Yekaterinburg	Kaliningrad
Nizhny Novgorod Stadium	Mordovia Arena	Central Stadium (Ekaterinburg Arena)	Kaliningrad Stadium
Capacity: 44,899	Capacity: 44,442	Capacity: 35,696	Capacity: 35,212