Video: Japan and Saudi Arabia qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar

The Japanese national football team joined the ranks of the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, after its precious and late victory with two goals without a response against its Australian host today, Thursday, in the penultimate ninth round of

the final round matches in the Asian qualifiers.

A negative tie between the Australian and Japanese teams remained until the penultimate minute of the match, but Karo Mituma scored two consecutive goals (89th and the fourth in overtime for the match) to grant Japan and Saudi Arabia a visa to qualify for the World Cup.

⚽️ Japan's goal is 1-0 ahead of Australia #2022_World_Cup_Qualifiers #Japan_Australia pic.twitter.com/ruQ0RjZC9Q

— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS) March 24, 2022

🇯🇵 Japan decides its qualification for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ # World Cup 2022 qualifiers # Japan_Australia pic.twitter.com/PXlSOcoT3l

— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS) March 24, 2022

The Saudi national team (the green) benefited from this result and qualified for the finals regardless of the outcome of its matches. China today and Australia next Tuesday.

The Japanese team raised its score to 21 points to temporarily take the lead in Group B in this round, with a difference of only two points in front of its Saudi counterpart, who can once again take the lead by defeating the Chinese counterpart in another match today in the same round.

The Australian team's balance froze at 15 points in third place, but its hope for direct qualification for the World Cup is limited to the Asian and global playoffs.

The two teams ranked first and second in each of the two groups will qualify for the finals directly, while the third-placed teams will enter the Asian play-off, and the winner of them will qualify for the global play-off in which they will face the fifth-placed team in the South American qualifiers.

The teams of Iran and South Korea booked the direct qualification cards from the first group to the finals, while a three-way Arab struggle for third place is taking place between the teams of the Emirates, Lebanon and Iraq.