How AFC's 2022 World Cup Qualifying Tournament Works

June 06, 2022, by Toby Banks

League Reviews

AFC's 2022 World Cup Qualifying Tournament

The qualifying tournaments for the Qatar 2022 World Cup are currently taking place, and all are in their decisive moments. In a concise time, we will know the national teams participating in the maximum world football tournament. In some confederations, the outlook is already clear, while in others, there are still matches and rounds that will define the AFC qualifiers. One of the conferences with the most significant number of participants in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Currently, this conference plays the third round of its World Cup qualification. Here, four teams will be automatically classified for Qatar 2022, and a fifth team will have to Play an international re-chase with a South American team to get the last ticket to the World Cup. However, before we go into any more details, it is good that we have a clear idea of how the qualification system works in the AFC.

The AFC qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup began on June 6, 2019, and will culminate on March 29, 2022. Forty-six teams participate, and to date, 198 of the 229 matches that will define those attending Qatar have been played. The AFC system consists of four rounds or phases. In the first phase, 12 teams participated: Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Cambodia, Guam, Laos, Macao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and East Timor. They faced each other in six groups of two teams. The winners of each group advanced to the second phase. In the second phase, the six teams from the first round join the 34 teams that occupy positions 1-34 of the FIFA AFC ranking, for 40 teams that faced each other between September 2019 and June 2021. Eight groups are made up of five teams each. The champions of each group qualified for the third round, and the four best teams came in second place.

AFC's 2022 World Cup Qualifying Tournament Right In The Hottest Moment

Among these 40 teams were national squads such as Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan, Qatar, Iran IR, China PR, Republic of Korea, and Vietnam. For the third phase, which began on September 2, 2021, and will end on March 29, 2022, 12 teams qualified. Saudi Arabia, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Japan, Lebanon, Oman, IR of Iran, PR China, Republic of Korea, Syria, and Vietnam. These 12 teams were divided into two groups of 6 teams.

The first two teams in each group qualify directly, and the two teams in third place in each group will face each other in a single match that decides which team will seek the last slot in the World Cup by facing a South American team. So far, in Group A, Iran is the leader with 16 points, followed by South Korea with 14 points, and thirdly, the United Arab Emirates. While in Group B, Saudi Arabia is in first place with 16 points, Japan in second with 12 points, and Australia is in third place with 11. But, there are still several matches to play, and it is not yet clear which teams will qualify automatically.

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