The 2026 World Cup, set to be hosted in the US, Mexico and Canada, may still be three years away but the 46 nations that make up the Asian Football Confederation now know the path they will have to tread on the road to qualification.
The preliminary round of qualifying in Asia — which doubles up as qualification for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia — will begin on Oct. 12, a mere 298 days after Argentina were crowned world champions in Doha.
Qatar 2022 was seen as something of a breakthrough for Arab football, highlighted by Saudi Arabia’s win over Argentina, Tunisia’s victory over France, and Morocco’s historic run to the semifinals. That said, Arab nations from the Asian continent went 28 years without a win at a World Cup finals and the contest’s qualifiers have never generated more than one finalist in a single edition.
With the finals expanding from 32 to 48 teams and Asia’s allotment doubling from four to eight spots, there is hope for that trend to be broken.
The draw includes an initial preliminary designed to reduce the field from 46 to 36 teams by means of 10 home-and-away playoffs to be held from Oct. 12 to 17.
The 10 preliminary winners will then be grouped with the rest of the field in nine groups of four teams with play slated to begin on Nov. 16. The top-two teams in each group will advance to an expanded third round of qualification and clinch qualification to the 2027 AFC Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia.
The 18 teams will then be divided into three groups of six with the top-two finishers in each group qualifying for the World Cup Finals and the bottom-two teams eliminated from contention.
The third- and fourth-place teams in each group, six in total, advance to the fourth round which will generate another two finalists along with an intercontinental playoff participant.
Below is an analysis of the nine groups.
Group A: Qatar, India, Kuwait, Afghanistan/Mongolia
The Asian Champions meekly exited their own World Cup and now face the prospect of a rebuild under former Iran coach Carlos Queiroz. The Portuguese tactician has qualified South Africa, Portugal, and Iran (twice) to the finals and the draw has been somewhat kind to his new team.
Al-Annabi can draw on experience from the last edition of qualifying when they were also grouped with India and Afghanistan.
Kuwait have fallen on hard times since their FIFA suspension in 2016. The Al-Azraq having missed out on two AFC Asian Cups, but drawing the lowest-ranked team from pot two means there is a serious chance the team could return to the third round for the first time since qualifiers for Germany 2006.
Group B: Japan, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar/Macau
If Syria are to return to the third round of World Cup qualifiers for the third straight edition they will have to survive the most demanding travel schedule of any team that was grouped in pot two.
The Eagles of Qasioun will travel a total of nearly 24,000 km just to get to the capitals of Japan, North Korea, and, most likely, Myanmar.
North Korea has a history of upsetting the established order in Asian football by leveraging its home field advantage in Pyongyang to great effect.
That said, the Koreans have not played a match since November 2019 due to the pandemic.
Myanmar suffered a loss in form that coincided with the 2021 military coup, losing 19 of their past 24 matches.
Group C: South Korea, China, Thailand, Singapore/Guam
On paper this should be a relatively straightforward group for South Korea, that have qualified for every World Cup finals since 1986. Football, however, is not played on paper.
There are already murmurs of discontent amongst Korean fans underwhelmed by the appointment of Jurgen Klinsmann. The former US and Germany boss did himself no favors by revealing plans to play Heung-Min Son as a box-to-box midfielder despite his pedigree as one of the best attackers in Asia and the English Premier League.
Meanwhile, Chinese football is recovering from the prolonged lockdown and Aleksandar Jankovic has only been in charge for seven non-competitive matches.
Group D: Oman, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Chinese Taipei/Timor Leste
Ivan Brankovic’s Oman have steadily risen up the FIFA rankings and shown their ability to go toe-to-toe with the best teams in the region. Oman lost the Gulf Cup final this year to hosts Iraq in extra time but not before dispatching the holders Bahrain in the semifinal.
They secured a famous scalp of Japan in qualification for Qatar 2022 and a 2-2 draw against Australia condemned the Socceroos to the inter-confederation playoff.
This group should feature few surprises for Oman.
Group E: Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Hong Kong/Bhutan
A group that will feature three Central Asian derbies could throw up a few unexpected results but it is quite clear who the best two teams are in the group.
Iran and Uzbekistan contested the final of the Central Asian Football Association Championships last June and both teams are mainstays of the latter rounds of Asian World Cup qualification tournaments.
Iran boast elite attackers in Mehdi Taremi, Sardar Azmoun, and Alireza Jahanbaksh and should reach the third round with little concern, while Uzbekistan have found their mojo again under former Iraq coach Srecko Katanec.
Group F: Iraq, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia/Brunei
The competition and intrigue in Group F will center on which team from Southeast Asia will survive qualifying.
Iraq might have preferred a less daunting travel schedule, but the Lions of Mesopotamia can take comfort in the fact that they have never dropped a match against any of their opponents.
Indonesia are heavily favored to get through the preliminary round and have improved by leaps and bounds, including clinching a spot at the 2023 AFC Asian Cup finals in Qatar.
Tim Garuda have been working furiously to close the gap between themselves and Vietnam who beat them by an aggregate score of 7-1 in two qualifiers during the 2022/23 cycle.
Group G: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Tajikistan, Cambodia/Pakistan
Group G should see both Arab teams advance with relative ease although there are question marks surrounding the coaching situation in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The Saudi Football Federation has yet to announce a replacement for Herve Renard while Jordan did a U-turn at the eleventh hour and decided not to renew the contract of Adnan Hamed.
The Iraqi tactician enjoyed a successful second spell with Al-Nashama winning 70 percent of his games, advancing past the group stage at the FIFA Arab Cup, and qualifying the team for the Asian Cup. Instead the Jordanian Football Association will turn to Hussein Ammouta who won plaudits for his style of play whilst in charge of Morocco’s A side.
Group H: UAE, Bahrain, Yemen/Sri Lanka, Nepal/Laos
This is the easiest possible group that the UAE and Bahrain could have dreamt of and with potentially only a single away trip outside of the Middle East.
The removal of Sri Lanka’s suspension from football meant that more teams entered the preliminary stage and the AFC bizarrely decided to let luck and not rankings reward a team from pot four with a position in pot three.
This is the perfect scenario for both teams, that will be under new management and facing the daunting task of rebuilding aging squads.
Paulo Bento only recently signed his contract with the UAE while Bahrain have yet to announce who will take over for Helio Sousa, the Portuguese tactician who won the 2019 WAFF Championship and 2019 Gulf Cup.
Yemen have shown an ability to qualify for several youth championships at the Asian level in spite of a civil war raging at home. The senior team could spring a couple of surprises against their regional rivals but the goal for Yemen remains qualifying for the 2027 Asian Cup.
Group I: Australia, Palestine, Lebanon, Maldives/Bangladesh
This is a group which will most likely send only one Arab team into the third round. Palestine and Lebanon have met three times since 2015 with each match ending in a draw.
Australia have a track record of making up for any wobbles away with imperious home form and it is hard to envision a scenario where they finish worse than second.
Palestine is on steadier footing than their neighbors to the north. Lebanon’s recent form has included a run of nine games with only three goals, all coming against lowly Vanuatu. Failure to win in three matches against India last month saw the Cedars lose ground in the FIFA rankings, which landed them in pot three. The question on the minds of Lebanese fans is if anyone other than the ageless Hassan Maatouk is able to score on a consistent basis.
Palestine will hope to ride the form of Charleroi’s 24-year-old star Oday Dabbagh, who has tallied 10 goals and five assists in his 27 appearances for the national team. Al-Fida’i can also count on one of the best goalkeepers in Asia, Rami Hamadi, who has 21 clean sheets in 38 games in national colors.
Palestine have never lost a competitive match on home soil but there are question marks as to the fate of their contest with Lebanon next June. Lebanon is technically still at war with Israel which makes crossing the Israeli-controlled border virtually impossible.
