https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/who-we-are/news/organising-committee-meets-in-zurich says: "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 preliminary competition calendar: The AFC will be the first confederation to start the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 preliminary competition, with the action scheduled to begin in June 2019. Details on the preliminary competitions of the other confederations will follow in due course."
Given the lack of "certainty" around how many teams will be in 2022 this is problematic. I mean, the AFC don't know if they are trying to get 4+1 teams for the World Cup + so many for the Asian Cup + 1 host or if they actually need to get the (presumably) 18 spots they might get + 9 hosts + extra Eurovision entrants through this process. I don't see how they can do the draw for both options here. J
I thought the first games in June - before the plenary draw in July - would involve only a handful of the lowest ranked teams in a preliminary round, so probably feasible while awaiting the decision in June.
It could still be useful to know how many teams and spots AFC will have because qualifying formats are determined by working backwards. The amount of teams eliminated in a round is chosen based on how many teams they want in the next round, and it eventually goes forward to how many teams qualify. I don't know if a confederation has ever played qualifiers before knowing how many spots they have.
AFC and CONCACAF held their first 2018 games in March 2015, but the number of places for each confederation was only decided at the end of May 2015.
"Confirmed" I think would be more accurate that "decided". Given that the AFC had said that their structure was based on the "assumption of no change" they either knew, or were hoping that that by starting the process the number of teams would have to be left as it was. J
Yeah, I see what you're saying. But the second-round of AFC qualifying (under the existing format) is pretty flexible. Eight groups with 12 teams advancing can easily be changed to 8 groups with 15 teams advancing (a 12-team final round certainly wouldn't make sense if WC is expanded). Its all odd-ball numbers anyway. So as long as the # of qualifying teams is known before the second round kicks-off, its all good IMO.
I hate when groups advance unequal amounts of teams, and I would hate if 8 groups advance 15 teams with 7 of 8 second place teams advancing. If 15 teams advanced and the amount of groups couldn't be a factor of 15, I would prefer 7 groups with 1 third place team advancing to 8 groups with 1 second place team not advancing. Concacaf has kept the format of their last two rounds (the only group stages other than when there were three group stages for 2014) the same going back to qualifying for 1998, but one final group of six wouldn't work if Concacaf got 4.5 or more spots. I think knowing how many teams is more important to Concacaf than to AFC. FIFA said AFC will start qualifying first, but Concacaf uses plenty of matchdays (22 for World Cup 2022 plus the interconfederational playoff made 24). There are 10 available per year, and the Nations League uses some of them. It also could be necessary to have unused matchdays in between rounds. For World Cups 1998 through 2010, Concacaf ended the Semifinals in November or December and started the Hexagonal in February or March. For 2014, the Semifinals ended in October and the Hexagonal started in February. For 2018, it was done earlier with the Semifinals ending in September 2016 and the Hexagonal starting in November 2016. With the elimination of the friendly matchdays in February and August, only 8 matchdays before the interconfederational playoffs were available in 2017, so the Hexagonal had to start earlier. There were no qualifiers in October 2016 so the draw (actually the schedule because there was only one group and the order of games was what was decided) could be done and teams could choose venues and sell tickets for games in November 2016.
CONCACAF was exploring ways to eliminate the Hex anyway as they've indicated they do not like so many teams being eliminated so early in the process. At the same time, the Hex was basically created so that the US and Mexico would both have the best shot at qualifying (oops...) and so that the WCQ home-and-away matches between the two would continue. So they've got to determine which of those goals is more important to them. With 3.5 bids, you can't do all those things, one of them has to be sacrificed. With 6 bids, it would just make more sense to get the field down to 12 and just run the old Fourth Round format (3 groups of 4).
It would make more sense to have two HEXs. They can even fudge the draw and put Mexico and US in the same HEX - pointing to the US’ failure to qualify for 2018 as an excuse not to give the US a top seed that would have kept them out of México’s group.
According to the article below, an AFC spokesperson has confirmed that the draw for the first round of the preliminaries in Asia will be held on 17 April. https://www.dawn.com/news/1471045
I don't like having that few qualifiers, although now there are Nations Leagues. If teams continue to get byes to the round of 12, they would have only 6 qualifiers.
I can't say I'm a fan either. Like many, I'm not a fan of the 48 team WC, but it is what it is and they're going to do it anyway. No matter what is done to CONCACAF qualifying for six bids, it's going to become substantially less fun. Having multiple qualifying groups in the final round means no WCQ matches with Mexico or Costa Rica. Instead of 3 groups of 4, you could make it 2 groups of 6, but if you go beyond 12 total teams, you're going to have some seriously one-sided qualifiers. Those would really be the only options with 6 bids: either reduce the number of matches played or have the top teams go against very low level competition. Unless they run a 32 team tournament this go-round, US-Mexico qualifiers are probably finished. I believe that was another purpose of the CNL, to allow that game to be played as much as possible.
3 groups of 4 might keep it interesting because then you could still have a surprise. But doubt they would do that as it would probably shorten the whole qualifying process by 10 matchdays, which is quite drastic NL or not. Two groups of 6 seems like the best way to go. Of course for 2026 qualifying they could stick with the current format since 3 teams qualify automatically "only" leaving 3 additional spots
Agreed - but I enjoy how you all pretend Montagliani isn't serious about going full UEFA on us. Yes, everyone playing in the same round, 5 groups of 6 + 1 group of 5, group winners go to WC + best 2nd placer (ignoring results against the teams that finished 6th) to the WC playoff tournament. That way, he gets to take his One Concacaf vision to the most extreme conclusion, while limiting WCQ to 10 matchdays (i.e. more time for Nations Leagues and Gold Cups!). If there's one ray of hope to convince me that this isn't our future, it's the possibility that FIFA lets in all three WC2026 hosts automatically, leaving 3 berths and 2 playoff tickets for everyone else - a scenario that the current Hex format fits perfectly. From that article: So is there no tangible progress on AFC setting up its own Nations League?
If the whole purpose of the Hex is to ensure USA v MEX matches, is a Hex without USA or MEX actually a Hex? WC quals often mimics some of the NL concept. The top teams play our final groups, the lower teams go into repechage Asian Cup groups. J
There has been no serious discussions about an AFC Nations League, but those 1st round WC losers plus the 2nd round Asian Cup play-off losers do get invited to the AFC Solidarity Cup. The first addition was played in Malaysia in 2016 with 7 of the minnows. It was won by Nepal who beat Macau in the final. But other than that 1st round WC play-off losers get no other meaningful games for the 4 year cycle at the moment.
AFC is using the same qualifying format as last time. Here is the Round 1 draw with the first leg home team listed first: Mongolia vs. Brunei Darussalam Macau vs. Sri Lanka Laos vs. Bangladesh Malaysia vs. Timor-Leste Cambodia vs. Pakistan Bhutan vs. Guam For all the pairings, the better team in the FIFA Rankings hosts the first leg. The games will be on Thursday 6 June and Tuesday 11 June.
They are starting early enough in AFC. If by some miracle one of these teams qualified, they would be a very different team by the time the WC kicks off, over 3.5 years from now!
They're starting 3 months later than WCQs for 2018 started for a World Cup that will be played 5 months later. These double as qualifiers for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, which will be in the summer over half a year after the World Cup.