Qatar 2022: 33 teams battle for 13 spots
19 teams have already secured qualification for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar between November 21 and December 18, leaving 13 spots up for grabs for 33 teams in the coming weeks.
The qualified teams are Qatar (host), Germany, Denmark, Brazil, France, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Argentina, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, and Ecuador.
The last three spots in UEFA will go to the final winners of the three groups. In Group A, Wales, which knocked out Austria, are waiting for the result of the game between Scotland and Ukraine. That game was postponed to June. In Group B, Poland and Sweden will compete for World Cup qualification. In Group C, the final competition is taking place between Portugal and North Macedonia.
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will compete with each other for one spot. In South America, Peru, Colombia, and Chile are fifth, sixth, and seventh with 21, 20, and 19 points respectively. Peru will have the chance to play against the AFC opponent as long as they beat Paraguay in the last game.
In AFC, Australia have already locked the No. 3 position in Group B. They are waiting to learn which team of Group A they need to play first before meeting the CONMEBOL rival. There are three candidates: the United Arabic Emirates, Iraq and Lebanon.
The five qualified teams from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will be announced after the second leg of five games. In the first leg of competitions, Egypt beat Senegal 1-0, Ghana and Nigeria tied 0-0, Tunisia beat Mali 1-0, Algeria had a 1-0 win over Cameroon and Morocco finished 1-1 with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) have 3.5 spots for the World Cup. With two more games to go, Canada now leads the section with 25 points, followed by USA (22 points) and Mexico (22 points). Costa Rica (19 points) and Panama (18 points) remain hopeful in fourth and fifth. If Canada can beat Jamaica in their next game, they will make it back to the World Cup for the first time in 36 years.
The top three teams of CONCACAF will be directly qualified for Qatar 2022 while the fourth one will go to compete for a spot with the winner from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
Four OFC teams are playing against each other for that chance and the matchups are: New Zealand vs. Tahiti and Solomon Islands vs. Papua New Guinea.
Nation/Nnenna.O
