Australia, Iraq, and 4 More Asian Teams Are in the World Cup. Here's Where Montreal Eats.

Six Asian Football Confederation teams made the 2026 World Cup. Australia. Iraq. Jordan. Qatar. Saudi Arabia. Uzbekistan. The tournament runs from June 11 to July 19, 2026, across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, with twelve groups of four. For Montreal, most AFC matches will broadcast in the morning and early afternoon, which means lunch tables, not late-night bar tabs.

Montreal's Asian diasporas are uneven. The Levantine corridor on Saint-Laurent and the Middle Eastern halal kitchens along Sherbrooke Ouest cover Iraq, Jordan, and the Gulf countries with real depth. Central Asian food has one honest table in Ahuntsic. Australia barely has a presence at all, and the city is honest about it. What follows is a team-by-team read, with the closest Montreal kitchen for each one.

Australia. The Socceroos are a mid-tier qualifier with a midfield in transition. Aaron Mooy has retired, and the new generation has not yet been tested at this level. Group stage exit looks more likely than a knockout run, though the squad has discipline and Tony Popovic's tactical structure to fall back on, after he took over from Graham Arnold in late 2024. The expectations are modest. The Australian football diaspora in Montreal will mostly be expats watching the early-morning kickoffs at downtown pubs, since the city has no actual Aussie cuisine to speak of. The one honest exception is Ta Pies on Avenue du Parc in Mile End, the New Zealand and Australian meat pie counter founded by Kiwi chef Don Hudson in 2010. The shop changed hands in 2025 and some long-time regulars say the import shelf is thinner than it was, but the steak-and-cheese, butter chicken, and lamington squares still come out of the oven and the rating holds at ★4.8 on hundreds of reviews. It is the closest thing to a Sydney-style pie cart Montreal will ever have.

Iraq. The Lions of Mesopotamia qualified for their first World Cup since 1986, a forty-year gap that has shaped a whole generation of Iraqi football fans who have only ever watched the Asian Cup. The team plays defensive, organised football under Graham Arnold, the former Australia coach who took the Iraq job in 2025 and dragged a long-suffering squad to qualification. They will sit deep, defend the box, and look for set pieces. A group stage exit is most likely, but they will be hard to beat. Iraqi Montreal is small, and most home cooking happens at home. The one dedicated room is Feenah Takeout on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Ahuntsic, a family-run kitchen where the dolma (stuffed vine leaves with sour-sweet ground beef and rice) is the dish to order. Masgouf, the grilled river fish that is Iraq's national obsession, is almost impossible to find in Montreal restaurant form. Iraqis cook it at home or wait for trips back.

Jordan. Al-Nashama qualified for their first World Cup ever after reaching the Asian Cup final in 2024. They are the sleeper pick of the AFC bracket. The squad is tactically disciplined, physically organised, and full of self-belief from the Asian Cup run. A group stage upset is in play. Jordanian Montreal is small, and there is no dedicated Jordanian room in the city. The closest you get is mansaf, the national dish of lamb cooked in fermented yogurt and served over rice with pine nuts, at Abu el Zulof on Crescent Street downtown. The room leans Lebanese-Syrian but the mansaf is on the menu and the portions are sized for sharing. For a more refined Levantine evening that covers the same flavour map without the dish name, Damas on Avenue Van Horne in Outremont is the city's Michelin-recognised Syrian table.

Qatar. The 2022 hosts had a disappointing record at their own tournament, losing all three group games. The 2026 campaign is a reputation-rebuild project, and the team has rebuilt under Julen Lopetegui after Tintín Márquez and Luis García took shorter spells on the bench. The squad is technical, well-funded, and intent on proving the 2022 result was an anomaly. A group stage exit is still the most likely outcome, but they will be more competitive. Qatari diaspora cuisine is not a thing in Montreal, and any honest article will say so. The closest crossover is the Gulf-Arab rice tradition, which Qatar shares with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Yemen. Machboos, the Qatari national dish, is a cousin of Yemeni mandi and Saudi kabsa. The closest authentic Gulf room in Montreal is Mazbi on Saint-Denis in the Plateau, a Yemeni kitchen serving stone-grilled chicken mazbi, lamb mandi, and kunafa. It is not Qatari, but it is the closest thing the city has.

Saudi Arabia. The Green Falcons stunned Argentina in the opening match of the 2022 World Cup, and the squad has continued to develop since. Roberto Mancini brought European tactical structure between 2023 and 2024 before his exit. Hervé Renard returned on an interim basis through qualifying, and Christos Donis took the permanent job ahead of the tournament. The Saudi Pro League's heavy spending has kept domestic players motivated. The 2026 squad will be one of the stronger AFC teams. A round of sixteen run is plausible. Saudi diaspora cuisine in Montreal is, again, almost invisible as a standalone, and the kabsa tradition crosses over with the rest of the Gulf. Mazbi covers the closest authentic ground. A small operation called Kabsa Mahdi and Biryani exists in Lachine and serves the dish by its proper name, though it runs as a delivery-leaning kitchen with limited dine-in. If you want the dish, the takeout option is real.

Uzbekistan. The White Wolves qualified for their first World Cup ever. The squad is an unknown quantity outside Asian football circles. They are technical, patient, and built around the midfield. The group stage will be the test, and the expectations are pragmatic. Getting there is the achievement. The Uzbek community in Montreal is small, and the city has nothing like the Brighton Beach Uzbek scene in New York or the Tashkent restaurants of Toronto. The one honest room is Kalabok in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, an Eastern European and Central Asian halal kitchen on Boulevard Laurentien. Plov, the national rice-lamb-carrot dish of Uzbekistan, is on the menu alongside samsa, manty, and pelmeni. The room is modest and the cooking is direct. For Uzbek food in Montreal, that is the table.

The Asian bracket at the 2026 World Cup is wider than usual, with two debutants (Jordan, Uzbekistan), one long-absent returner (Iraq), one rebuilding host (Qatar), one improving heavyweight (Saudi Arabia), and one veteran mid-tier qualifier (Australia). Montreal covers the bracket unevenly, with Levantine and Gulf-Arab kitchens carrying most of the weight and Central Asian and Aussie corners filled by single rooms. Pick the team. Pick the table. The matches will be on early. The food will be ready.