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The first World Cup qualifiers for 2026 began on Thursday when teams from CONMEBOL kicked off the years-long journey for berths at the North America-set competition. The expanded 48-team World Cup means South American teams will compete for 6.5 spots at the upcoming tournament. Paraguay and Peru kick off the World Cup qualifying tournament on Thursday while reigning champions Argentina will play later in the day as they seek to follow up 2022's success with another deep run in 2026.

Brazil aim to continue their streak of qualifying for every World Cup, and will do so with a regular cast of characters including Neymar and Richarlison for the first set of matches. They began their qualifying campaign on Friday with a 5-1 romp against Bolivia.

Here's what you need to know before tuning into the first round of qualifiers.

Pay-per-view options

Fanatiz will air most of the matches during this window, namely home matches for Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The streaming platform is offering the matches on a pay-per-view basis -- buying one match will cost $29.99, while a two-match bundle will cost $49.99 and all of them together will be $99.99.

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Matches will be available in English, Spanish or with just stadium sound and comes with a seven-day video-on-demand option.

Schedule

All times Eastern

Thursday, Sept. 7
Paraguay 0, Peru 0
Colombia 1, Venezuela 0
Argentina 1, Ecuador 0

Friday, Sept. 8
Uruguay 3, Chile 1
Brazil 5, Bolivia 1

Tuesday, Sept. 12
Bolivia vs. Argentina, 4 p.m.  (fubo)
Ecuador vs. Uruguay, 5 p.m. (Fanatiz)
Venezuela vs. Paraguay, 6 p.m. (Fanatiz)
Chile vs. Colombia, 8:30 p.m. (Fanatiz)
Peru vs. Brazil, 10:00 p.m. (Fanatiz)

The second round of action is in October.