Image credit: RoboCup Federation. RoboCup 2026 kicked off today in Incheon, South Korea, with the league competitions running until 5 July. It’s an exciting time for RoboCup, as there have been some updates to the leagues and competition format. Most prominently, the soccer leagues will have a primary focus on humanoid robots. In a series of daily updates, we’ll be bringing you the latest results, videos, and news from the humanoid soccer league.
This year, the humanoid league is split into three sizes: large division, middle division, and small division. There are 18 teams participating the small division, 16 in the middle, and an impressive 22 competing in the large division. The first two days of competition are be devoted to the seeding round. Teams play using the Swiss-system of ranking to decide who gets through to the knockout stages.
Livestreams from the different fields of play can be found here . At the end of the first day of competition, teams in the small and middle divisions have played two games each, with the large division ending the day part way through the second round. Early leaders in the small division, with the full six points from two games are: GeoHBots , CAU Mountain&Sea , and Hamburg Bit-Bots .
There are also three teams in the middle division who have claimed the six point haul: B-Human , RoboRoos , and HTWK Robots . You can watch a short summary of the first day, including some of the robots in action, from KBS News: This short video from RoboCup gives a flavour of the day’s happenings, which also featured the opening ceremony.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by RoboCup Federation (@robocup.official) We will be back tomorrow with further updates on competition results, some highlights from the day, and insights into how the event is progressing. Useful links RoboCup 2026 homepage Humanoid league YouTube channel Humanoid league results page RoboCupSoccer homepage
