The top 18 in Asia are released! Saudi Arabia's 3rd national football team is 5th The group of death is brewing

Encyclopedia of Balls

2024-06-12 17:06Published in Shandong

On June 12, Beijing time, all 18 teams that advanced to the third round of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup were produced. They are: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Palestine, North Korea, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait.

According to the rules, the third stage of the round of 18 will divide the 18 teams into 3 groups, with each group of 6 countries playing a home-and-away round-robin match. After 10 rounds, the six teams ranked first and second in the group directly qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

The six teams that finished 3rd and 4th will be divided into two groups and will play again in the fourth round of preliminaries to be held in October 2025. The top-placed teams in each group qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup, while the second-placed teams in each group play home and away matches in November of that year. The winning team will represent Asia in the FIFA intercontinental play-offs and eventually qualify for the World Cup finals.

(Expected FIFA rankings of Asian teams in June)

The draw for the round of 18 will be determined based on the FIFA rankings in June. The FIFA rankings for June are expected to be updated on June 20. However, according to FIFA's calculation method, the classification of the top 18 matches in Asia has actually been released in advance.

Pot 1 is Japan, Iran and South Korea, three of Asia's strongest teams, who all topped their group in the second stage.

Pot 2 is expected to include Australia, who have reached the World Cup finals for the fifth time in a row, Qatar, who won the Asian Cup in February, and Iraq, a dark horse in the Middle East. Iraq was ranked 58th in the FIFA rankings released in April, below West Asian powerhouse Saudi Arabia (56th), but moved up to Pot 2 in June after back-to-back victories over Indonesia and Vietnam.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, beat Pakistan (197th) 3-0, but lost 2-1 to Jordan (68th) in their last home game, losing a lot of points in the rankings, and Saudi Arabia only qualified for the round of 18 as second in Group G.

As a result, the third pot is occupied by Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Jordan. In this bracket, Saudi Arabia is a regular participant in the World Cup, and the team drawn to Saudi Arabia in the third pot will inevitably enter the "Group of Death"! Jordan has just finished runners-up in the Asian Cup. They beat South Korea 2-0 in the semi-finals of the Asian Cup. Uzbekistan will represent Asia in the men's final at the Paris Olympics in July, and the team's upward momentum is strong.

Pot 4 is expected to feature three Middle Eastern teams, including the UAE, Oman and Bahrain. The UAE team, led by Paulo Bento, finished first in Group H in the second stage, while Oman finished first in Group D and Bahrain finished second in Group H.

Pot 5 is China, Palestine and Kyrgyzstan. In addition to the Chinese team, the other two teams advanced to the third round of the World Preliminary Tournament for the first time in history. Therefore, if the Chinese team is drawn in the 5th gear, it is not actually a good signing.

The teams in Pot 6 are North Korea, Indonesia and Kuwait. Among them, under the leadership of South Korean head coach Shin Tae-yong, the Indonesian team advanced to the third round of the qualifiers for the first time in history. However, Indonesia is definitely the king of the six teams, they have dozens of naturalized players in their squad, and the Football Association is constantly naturalizing new players. Their true strength should be around the third gear.

After reading the distribution of teams in brackets 1-6, I believe everyone already knows in their hearts that if the 6 teams of Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China and Kuwait are in one group, it will be a super death group. Facing these 5 teams, the possibility of the national football team finishing in the top 4 of the group is almost zero. Therefore, the Chinese Football Association still has to do its homework and try to let the Chinese team draw a good signing, at least avoid Saudi Arabia in the third gear and Kuwait in the sixth gear.

View original image 959K

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•