Hockey World Cups Run to August 30 Across Amstelveen and Wavre With 32 Teams in One Fortnight
Belgium and the Netherlands are co-hosting the men's and women's FIH Hockey World Cups from 14 to 30 August, the first time the men's event has been shared between two nations, with both finals on the closing day.
Two World Cups, two countries, 32 teams and one closing day. The 2026 FIH Hockey World Cups run from 14 to 30 August across Belgium and the Netherlands, and the scheduling means the men's and women's finals land on the same afternoon.
A first for the men's tournament
The men's World Cup has never been co-hosted before. Belgium and the Netherlands share it across two venues: the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, which holds around 15,000, and the Stade Justin Peeters in Wavre, capacity roughly 10,000. The women's event is co-hosted for the second time, after the 2022 edition.
Both tournaments run 16 teams split into four pools of four. The top two from each pool go through to the knockout phase, with the remaining sides dropping into classification matches.
The men's pools
| Pool | Teams |
|---|---|
| A | Netherlands, Argentina, New Zealand, Japan |
| B | Belgium, Germany, France, Malaysia |
| C | Australia, Spain, Ireland, South Africa |
| D | England, India, Pakistan, Wales |
Pool B is the one to circle. Belgium and Germany — the two finalists from 2023 — have been drawn together, which guarantees that one of them arrives in the knockouts having already been tested.
Defending champions on both sides
Germany hold the men's title after beating Belgium in a shoot-out in 2023, the match finishing 3-3 before the Germans took it 5-4 from the spot. On the women's side the Netherlands are defending, having beaten Argentina 3-1 in the 2022 final, and they do it in front of a home crowd in Amstelveen.
The draw deliberately placed Belgium and the Netherlands in separate pools so both host nations could play at home for as long as possible.
The road to 30 August
Pool matches run from 15 to 20 August, with the knockout rounds spread across 21 to 29 August. Semi-finals are on 28 August, and the finals plus the third-place playoffs close the tournament on 30 August.
For anyone following both draws at once, the middle week is dense: classification games, quarter-finals and semi-finals overlap across the two venues, and Amstelveen and Wavre are close enough that squads and travelling supporters can realistically follow both.
Why the format rewards patience
Sixteen-team pools of four are unforgiving of a single bad afternoon. A shock result in the opening round can end a favourite's tournament before the second week begins, which is why the sides with genuine squad depth — Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Belgium in the men's draw — tend to be the ones still standing on finals day even when their pool form has been scrappy.
Following it on Playdash
Playdash carries outright winner and to-reach-the-final markets for both the men's and women's tournaments, alongside match-by-match pricing through the pool stage and knockouts. Pool standings and fixture times update as results come in, and the two finals on 30 August are covered as separate events.
Fixture details reflect the published FIH schedule for the 2026 tournaments.