The World Cup 2022 will soon reach its last qualifying stage

The World Cup 2022 preliminaries from Europe came to an end so we know the first ten teams qualified directly. Soon we will find out the rest of the teams that are set to join them.

The 12 teams that will play each other to secure a place in the 2022 competition will be divided into two ballot boxes, depending on the score obtained in the preliminaries (those who were part of groups of 6 were deducted the points obtained with the last ranked) and the 6 leaders they will play at home in the first matches of the play-offs. At the draw that will take place on November the 26th, the team pairings from the final phase of the draw will be established, there being no criteria taken into account.

First lot for the draw is made of: Italy, Portugal. Russia, Sweden, Wales and Scotland
Second lot: Ukraine, Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Turkey and Northern Macedonia
It should be noted that Russia and Ukraine will not be able to meet, due to the political conflict between the two countries.

Following the last matches, Italy has joined the teams that will have to go in the playoffs for the final tournament. The European champions failed to win in Northern Ireland, so they lost the direct qualification to Switzerland.

There, we could see strong duels, such as Italy versus Ukraine, Portugal versus Poland or Russia versus Czech Republic.

The traditional play-off system with home/away matches is already history. Until now, the national teams that reached this phase of qualifications in Europe had to overcome only one opponent. Now, they will have to face two opponents, in KO system, to get the tickets for the 2022 World Cup.

For the last three tickets in the Europe area, 12 nations are fighting, at the end of March 2022. The first round starts on March the 24th and 25th, the next one taking place on March the 28th and 29th. In the play-offs, the teams ranked 2nd in the preliminary groups plus the best two in the hierarchy of the League of Nations - group winners - who finished outside the first two positions in the qualification campaign for the World Cup. These last two places will be occupied by Austria and the Czech Republic or Wales.

UEFA erased the points obtained by the teams ranked second with the last teams in their groups.

The final tournament will be hopsted by Qatar and will be a historical World Cup as it is the last edition with 32 teams! It is scheduled to take place later in next year between November the 21st and December the 18th. The draw for the final tournament groups will take place in April 2022, the exact date to be set by FIFA.

It is the first final tournament not to be played in the summer, due to the excessive heat in Qatar. From 2026 no less than 48 teams will play at the World Cup.

The Qatar competition will take place in eight stadiums in five cities. The matches will take place in Doha (4 arenas), Lusail, Al Khor, Al Rayyan and Al Wakrah. The playing hours of the games will be 12:00, 15:00, 18:00 and 21:00 for the group stage and 17:00 and 21:00 for the eliminatory games.