Almost exactly a year before the opening game of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on November 18, the field of participants in the final round is filling up.

13 of 32 teams have been chosen.

In addition to the automatically set host team, record world champions Brazil and arch rivals Argentina have already successfully qualified in South America.

In Europe, the ten group winners Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Croatia, England and Germany have secured their tickets.

Tobias Rabe

Responsible editor for Sport Online.

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There are still various qualifying games on the program around the world until the final groups are drawn in Doha on April 1, 2022.

In Africa, five more places will be awarded, in Asia four, in South America two more, in addition to Brazil and Argentina, and three in North and Central America.

There are also two participants from intercontinental decision-making games.

Every football confederation except Europe and Africa provided a team.

Who plays against whom is drawn by lot.

That sounds a bit complicated, but nothing compared to the procedure for awarding the last three European World Cup places.

The path away from the group winners has never been so tricky - and strange. Twelve teams now have the chance to secure one of three tickets available for Qatar. First of all, there are the ten runners-up in the qualification groups: Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Ukraine, Wales, Scotland, Turkey, Russia, Poland and North Macedonia. In addition - and now it is getting more complicated - the two best group winners from the previous Nations League, who were not among the best two teams in their groups in the World Cup qualification. Understood?

In the Nations League, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain finished first in the four groups of League A.

However, these are already firmly qualified or in the play-offs for the World Cup.

In League B, Wales (16 points), Austria (13), the Czech Republic (12) and Hungary (11) were in first place.

Wales secured participation in the playoffs by finishing second in World Cup qualifying group E.

The Czechs and Austria were third (Group E) and fourth (F).

With their good performance in the Nations League, they are now rewarded with a chance to participate in the World Cup.

The ranking of all Nations League teams at a glance (PDF)

The case of Austria is particularly curious. The team of German coach Franco Foda was only fourth in the World Cup qualifying group behind Denmark, Scotland and Israel. While Israel no longer has a chance of participating in Qatar, the Austrians can hope. That's because Austria won its group in the Nations League, the Israelis only finished third in theirs. This is how the new, complicated world of the European Football Union (UEFA) works. The aim of the difficult-to-understand rules is to strengthen the controversial Nations League.

The path for the participants in the playoffs has also become trickier. So far, the teams in Europe played a winner in the first and second leg, who was then allowed to go to the finals. This is no longer the case, as only three tickets are available for the twelve remaining teams. The drawing will be held in Zurich on November 26th at 5 p.m. Then the twelve teams are drawn into three groups of four teams each. Two semi-finals will be played here; the winners reach the final and compete for a place in the finals of the World Cup in Qatar.

The draw for the play-off groups is also not devoid of precise rules.

For political reasons, Russia and Ukraine cannot be drawn as opponents.

Otherwise, the six top runners-up in the group are in pot 1 and have home rights in the semi-finals.

The other teams are in pot 2. Since the previous qualification groups had partly five, partly six teams, the results against the bottom of the group are deleted in the order.

And these are now the pots:

Pot 1

Portugal 17 points (17: 6 goals)


Scotland 17 (14: 7)


Italy 16 (13: 2)


Russia 16 (14: 5)


Sweden 15 (12: 6)


Wales 15 (14: 9)

Pot 2

Turkey 15 (18:16)


Poland 14 (18:10)


North Macedonia 12 (14:11)


Ukraine 12 (11: 8)


Czech Republic (Nations League)


Austria (Nations League)

First, the teams from Pot 1 will be drawn as the home teams for the semi-finals.

Then it is the turn of the teams from Pot 2 and are drawn one after the other as opponents.

The first two games belong to playoff path A. The two winners are in the final and play the Qatar ticket in one game.

The same applies to semifinals 3 and 4 (path B) and 5 and 6 (path C).

The semi-finals will take place on Thursday, March 24th, 2022, the finals on Tuesday, March 29th.

Home rights will be drawn for the finals.

All playoff kick-off times will be determined after the draw.

All games can be seen live and exclusively on DAZN.

Some prominent names are threatened with death in the tough playoffs.

In addition to European champions, the focus is particularly on Portugal with Cristiano Ronaldo, Sweden with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Poland with Robert Lewandowski.

From a German point of view, the qualifying games are interesting even without the team of national coach Hansi Flick.

Former German U-21 coach Stefan Kuntz is in charge in Turkey.

And the Austrians play with a large number of players from the Bundesliga.

And even if Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic cannot meet in the semifinals due to the division of the pot.

A final between the two old stars is possible, as is a duel with Italy.