Germany, Belgium and Croatia are among the teams that will play games in Canada in group play at next summer’s FIFA World Cup.
The full schedule of the expanded 48-team, 104-game tournament was announced Saturday in Washington D.C.
Canada is staging 13 games, seven in Vancouver and six in Toronto. Three of those games are in the knockout rounds.
Toronto will host No. 72 Ghana versus No. 30 Panama (June 17, Group L), No. 9 Germany versus No. 42 Ivory Coast (June 20, Group E), Panama versus No. 10 Croatia (June 23, Group L) and No. 19 Senegal versus a playoff winner — Iraq, Bolivia or Suriname — (June 26, Group I).
Vancouver will host No. 26 Australia versus a European playoff winner (June 13, Group D) and No. 86 New Zealand versus No. 34 Egypt and No. 8 Belgium (June 21 and 26, Group G).
That means Canada could see such stars as Egypt’s Mo Salah, Croatia’s Luka Modric and Germany’s Joshua Kimmich.
Ivory Coast has played in Toronto before, defeating Canada in a penalty shootout on June 4 in the Canadian Shield tournament.
As one of the co-hosts, Canada’s schedule had been finalized with Friday’s draw.
The 27th-ranked Canadian men will host a team from the European playoffs, with No. 12 Italy one of the four teams involved, on June 12 in Toronto before heading west to Vancouver, where they will face No. 51 Qatar on June 18 and No. 17 Switzerland on June 24.
Both Vancouver games are at B.C. Place Stadium.
Should the Canadian men win their group, they would stay in Vancouver for their round-of-32 game and, if they keep winning, a round-of-16 matchup.
Should Canada finish runner-up, it would face the second-place team in Mexico’s Group A.
Toronto’s lone game after the group stage is a round-of-32 matchup featuring the runners-up from Group K and L, which could mean Colombia and Croatia.
Stadium size clearly played a major role in the schedule with marquee teams playing in giant venues.
Toronto’s BMO Field, with a tournament capacity of 54,000, and B.C. Place (54,000) can’t compete with giant NFL stadiums.
No. 1 Spain will play its first two Group H games at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium (capacity 75,000) against debutant Cabo Verde and Saudi Arabia before shifting to Guadalajara, Mexico, to meet Uruguay at Estadio Akron (48,000).
Defending champion Argentina, ranked second in the world, will open Group J play against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City (76,400) before facing Austria and Jordan at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas (80,000).
No. 3 France will open Group I play against Senegal at MetLife Stadium (82,500) before facing a playoff winner (Iraq, Bolivia or Suriname) at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field (69,000) and Norway in Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. (65,000).
No. 4 England opens Group L play against Croatia at AT&T Stadium in Texas before facing Ghana at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and Panama at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
No. 5 Brazil is playing at MetLife Stadium, Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium (capacity 65,000).
