The draw ceremony puts the Qatar World Cup in the spotlight

The picture became clearer regarding the identity of most of the qualified teams for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, with only five vacant seats left in these finals.

During the next few hours, the two other seats will be decided by the CONCACAF qualifiers (North, Central America and the Caribbean), while the remaining three seats will be decided in the finals in the middle of this year through the European, Asian and global supplement.

But the draw for the finals, which will take place on Friday in the Qatari capital, Doha, will also determine more clearly the path of the 29 qualified teams from among the 32 seats in the World Cup, and will determine the path of the three teams expected to qualify until their exact identity is known.

With the draw, the expected world championship in Qatar will take a new and big step in the way of establishing this historical version.

Qatar will host the activities of this edition of the World Cup from November 21 to December 18, to become the first edition in the history of the World Cup to be held away from the middle of the year.

It can also be considered a historical version as it is the last with the participation of only 32 teams, while the number of teams in the tournament will increase to 48 teams, starting from the next edition scheduled for 2026.

Even the relatively calm pace of international friendlies will be treated with great interest as the top teams prepare for what could be a major crowning achievement for their successes.

Germany goalkeeper and captain Manuel Neuer said after the 1-1 draw with his Dutch counterpart yesterday: "We need to take advantage of every test we take before traveling to Qatar. For this, we have to take every match seriously."

He explained, "The Dutch national team was the first big name we met, and we performed well most of the periods. I think it was a decent performance."

The German national team (Mannschaft) has won eight matches and drawn one since coach Hansi Flick took charge of the team after the end of the team's participation in the European Nations Cup (Euro 2020), which was held in mid-2021. It is also expected that Belgium will be ranked first in the world in recent years, France, the world champions, and England, the runners-up to the European champion, the European challenge in the absence of the Italian team, the European champion, who was eliminated from the qualifiers with one of the biggest surprises.

And the French team, led by its outstanding striker Kylian Mbappe, can win the world title for the second consecutive year, becoming the first team to succeed in defending the title since the Brazilian team succeeded in this in 1962. On the other hand, the Brazilian team appears to be at the forefront of the candidates to snatch the world title from European teams for the time. The first since the same team won the title in 2002 in South Korea and Japan.

The Brazilian team set a new record in the number of points it scored in one copy of the South American qualifiers for the World Cup, where it led the qualifiers with 45 points, before its expected match with the Argentine national team, which was canceled in the last period and it was decided to repeat it.

The teams of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador booked the four direct qualification tickets from the South American qualifiers to the Qatar World Cup.

"The feeling for me now is relief," said coach Tite, the coach of the Brazilian national team.

The Senegalese team, the African champion, beat its Egyptian counterpart, led by the famous star Mohamed Salah, on penalties, to reserve its place in the finals in Qatar.

The teams of Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana and Cameroon from the African continent also qualified for the World Cup.

The Canadian team returns to the World Cup for the first time after 36 years of its only previous participation in the tournament, as the team clearly imposed its dominance in the qualifiers for the Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF) and booked the first qualification card from this union to the World Cup. It seems that the American and Mexican teams are strong candidates to accompany him.

The teams of Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea and Iran qualified from the Asian continent, while the UAE team is competing in the Asian play-off against its Australian counterpart, so that the winner of them qualifies for the international play-off, in which the Peruvian team, ranked first in the South American qualifiers, will meet.

The play-off matches will be held next June, which also applies to the other match in the playoff between the Oceania Confederation qualifiers champion and the fourth-placed team in the CONCACAF qualifiers.

The Ukrainian team will also meet its Scottish counterpart in the semi-finals of the first track in the European supplement, and the winner of them will rise to meet the Welsh team in the final of the same track.

The two matches of this track in the European Annex were postponed as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the past weeks.

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