Round of 18 draw preview: the fifth gear of the national football team! There will be 5 opponents to play 10 rounds and target the top four in the group

Nian Zhou

2024-06-27 05:03Premier League commentator, Tencent Football Contributing Writer Creator in the field of sports

At 15 o'clock on June 27, Beijing time, the draw ceremony for the top 18 matches in the Asian region of the World Preliminary Championships will be held. What are the implications for the prospects of a World Cup impact? This is also a focus of great concern for all fans.

Qualifying rules

There are eight direct qualification spots for the 2026 World Cup Asia and one intercontinental play-off quota for a total of 8.5 places.

The 18 teams were drawn into 3 groups of 6 teams each, using a home-and-away round-robin format, with a total of 10 rounds.

The top two teams in each group have a total of 6 teams and directly qualify for the World Cup finals; A total of 6 teams in the third and fourth places in each group are divided into two groups, each group of 3 teams, a single round-robin system, and the first team in each of the two groups has a total of 2 teams to advance to the World Cup; The two groups will be finished second in each group and will play two legs of play-offs, with the winner joining five teams from other continents in the continental play-offs for the last two World Cup tickets.

In other words, if you want to participate in the World Cup, or keep your hopes of hitting the World Cup, the national football team needs to finish in the top four of the group in the round of 18, and if it ranks fifth or sixth, it will say goodbye to the 2026 World Cup completely.

Binning situation

The 18 teams are divided into brackets according to the latest FIFA World Rankings, with a total of 6 brackets of 3 teams in each bracket, and the national football team is in the fifth bracket. The specific classification is as follows:

First gear: Japan, Iran, South Korea

Second pot: Australia, Qatar, Iraq

Tier 3: Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Jordan

Pot 4: UAE, Oman, Bahrain

Fifth gear: China, Palestine, Kyrgyzstan

Tier 6: North Korea, Indonesia, Kuwait

Lottery process

The draw starts from the sixth pot, after all 3 teams are settled, then the fifth, fourth, third, second and finally the 3 teams in the first pot are settled.

The teams in each pot fall into Group A, Group B and Group C in the order in which they were drawn, without any avoidance principle. The teams drawn from Pot 1 are the seeded teams from each group.

Game time

There are 10 rounds of the round of 18, which will be played from September 2024 to June 2025, with the final four rounds taking place in March and June next year.

According to the schedule, it is very difficult for the national football team to play against the teams in the first three gears in the first three rounds, and strive to score more points. The fourth and fifth rounds against the teams in Pot 6 and 4 are a good opportunity to try to win, and if you can't win, then the second leg of the second leg will be very passive, and you may even miss the World Cup a few rounds earlier!

First round: 2024.09.05, Pot 1 team VS Chinese team

Second round: 2024.09.10, Chinese team VS third gear team

Third round: 2024.10.10, the second team VS the Chinese team

Fourth round: 2024.10.15, Chinese team VS sixth gear team

Fifth round: 2024.11.14, the fourth team VS the Chinese team

Sixth round: 2024.11.19, Chinese team VS first pot team

Seventh round: 2025.03.20, third gear team VS Chinese team

Eighth round: 2025.03.25, China team VS second pot team

Ninth round: 2025.06.05, sixth-gear team VS Chinese team

Tenth round: 2025.06.10, Chinese team VS fourth gear team

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