After successfully staging the tightest World Cup ever in Qatar, FIFA is gearing up for the next World Cup, its biggest yet.
In 2026, 48 teams will participate in the World Cup jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The number of places in Asia has increased again, and the Chinese men's football team seems to have seen the dawn of advancement.
Participating teams from 32 to 48
The Qatar World Cup will be the last World Cup in history with 32 teams participating. From the next World Cup, the participating teams will increase to 48, a full 16 more teams.
Looking back at the history of the World Cup, everything from the competition system to the rules has been undergoing changes.
From 1954 to 1982, there were 16 participating teams in the World Cup.
In 1986, the World Cup expanded to 24 teams for the first time.
From 1998 to this year, there were 32 teams.
Whether it is the distribution of teams or the location of the World Cup, it has gradually expanded from Europe and South America to other parts of the world.
The expansion of the World Cup means an increase in the number of matches.
According to the original plan of 16 groups (3 teams in each group), the number of matches will be increased from the current 64 to 80.
However, after the World Cup in Qatar, FIFA President Infantino has said that they are re-examining the group stage plan, and it is possible to use 12 groups (4 teams in each group), and the top two teams in each group will compete with 8 teams. The third place with the best results, a total of 32 teams will advance to the knockout stage. This plan means that the number of World Cup matches will reach 104.
World Cup expansion means change.
After adding 16 teams, it is inevitable that some weak teams will be added, which may affect the enjoyment of the group stage.
In this regard, FIFA plans to use overtime and penalty kicks to determine the winner in the next World Cup group stage in order to increase the viewing of the game.
Of course, this proposal can only be determined after FIFA finalizes the final competition system.
Asian quota from 4.5 to 8.5
The overall expansion of the World Cup is of course good news for Asian teams, which means an increase in the number of places in the finals.
In this World Cup, the performance of Asian teams is surprising.
Judging from the promotion results alone, compared with the 2018 Russia World Cup where only the Japanese team advanced to the top 16, a total of 3 Asian teams have completed the promotion this time.
Among them, the Japanese team has begun to communicate frequently with European and South American teams under the condition of a sound domestic football system. The Japanese Football Association has even started to spend a lot of money to set up a national team training base in Germany to facilitate foreign players to participate in national team training. This is also a strong signal of Japanese football's active participation and integration into European football.
The South Korean team, also belonging to East Asia, also advanced to the top 16 of this World Cup. They broke through the group stage surrounded by strong opponents, tied with Uruguay and defeated Portugal, and qualified second in the group when they were not optimistic.
The Australian team also won two consecutive victories and made a strong move to the qualifying stage under unfavorable conditions, and caused a lot of trouble for the Argentine team in the first round of the knockout round.
As for the West Asian teams, although none of the teams advanced to the knockout round, the Saudi team overturned the Argentine team and got rid of the label of "fish belly", while the Iranian team won the respect of the world by virtue of their tenacity and iron blood.
With this surprising performance, the performance of Asian teams in the next World Cup is even more worth looking forward to.
Judging from the current rules formulated by the AFC, the Asian qualifiers for the next World Cup will also usher in major changes.
First, the number of stages has increased, from 3 stages to 4 stages.
Secondly, the number of places has also increased from 4.5 to 8.5.
Specifically, in the first stage of the World Preliminaries, teams ranked 26-47 in Asia will compete first, and 11 teams will be selected to enter the second stage.
In the second stage, the teams ranked 1-25 in Asia and the 11 teams that broke through in the first stage will be divided into 9 groups, with 4 teams in each group, and the top two teams in the group will enter the third stage.
In the third stage, 18 teams will participate. They will be divided into 3 groups with 6 teams in each group. The top two teams in the group will directly advance to the World Cup.
The 3rd and 4th teams in each group will be qualified for the top 6 in the fourth stage. The 6 teams in the fourth stage will be divided into two groups, and the first place in each group will qualify. The second-placed team will then go into a home and away knockout match, and the winner will qualify for the intercontinental play-off.
However, the increase in the number of places in the Asian region to 8.5 does not mean that the national football team's hopes of entering the World Cup have greatly increased, because the national football team is currently only ranked 11th in Asia.
"Yangtze Evening News" December 26, 2022, version A07