A world cup cannot be played if no sufficient teams qualify for the tournament. This is why shortly after a world cup ends, qualification matches begin getting played by teams in different regions. The process of qualifying teams for a world cup is time taking and this is why it starts much earlier than the world cup. Qualifying for the world cup 2022 also begzan on 6th June, 2019, a year after the previous world cup. This was when smaller nations of Asian federation played their first round of matches. The first goal was made by Mongolia’s Norjmoogiin Tsedenbal.
How many teams qualify for the World Cup?
Well, you should know that for the world cup 2022, the final qualification match has been played during March 2022. 30 of the 32 teams were qualified on the basis of their performance in the matches while 2 seats were filled by intercontinental playoff qualifiers in June. Included in 30 nations, Qatar was automatically qualified for having the right to host the world cup.
Usually a total of 32 Nations qualify for the World Cup every time but this number will extend to 48 from World Cup 2026 onwards. The number of nations qualifying for the World Cup was very low earlier. It changed from 24 to 32 in 1978. Since then, it has remained constant till now but not anymore. The 2026 World Cup will bring a lot of changes.
Which countries have qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup?
32 teams which are going to play in the 2022 World Cup have been selected from different regions. 13 qualified Nations for the 2022 World Cup are from Europe, four from Asia, four from South America, 5 from Africa and the last 4 teams have been qualified from North America and Australia, a member of the Asian confederation. But the most important thing is which 32 teams qualify for the upcoming next world cup.
As I told you before, only 32 countries qualify for a world cup. Same rule is imposed on the upcoming 2022 World Cup. 32 nations selected for the tournament represent different regions. This list of Nations include Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Denmark, Belgium, Croatia, France, Serbia, Spain, England, Netherlands, Argentina, IR Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Uruguay, Ecuador, Canada, Ghana, Senegal, Poland, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia, United States, Cameroon, Wales and Mexico.
Region Wise Qualification
As I mentioned above 13 teams were to be selected from Europe for the world cup while there are a total of 55 countries in the continent. This is why qualification matches were played between them. Qualification process went on from March to November 2021. Countries were distributed in 10 groups and the winner of each group qualified for the tournament. The place of the remaining three countries are filled via playoffs.
Groups of which winner directly went to the finals
Group A: Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Azerbaijan, Serbia and Luxembourg.
Group B: Sweden, Georgia, Greece, Spain and Kosovo
Group C: Switzerland, Northern, Ireland, Lithuania, Italy and Bulgaria
Group D: Ukraine, Bosnia, France, Finland, Kazakhstan and Herzegovina
Group E: Wales, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic and Estonia
Group F: Denmark, Scotland,, Austria, Israel, Moldova and Faroe Islands
Group G: Turkey, Montenegro, Norway, Netherlands, Latvia and Gibraltar
Group H: Slovakia, Russia, Croatia, Malta, Cyprus and Slovenia
Group I: Hungary, Poland, Albania, England, Andorra and San Marino
Group J: Romania, North Macedonia, Armenia, Liechtenstein and Iceland
Four teams were to be qualified from North America, Central America, Caribbean (CONCACAF). There are a total of 35 FIFA affiliated nations in CONCACAF most of whom are very minor in the football world. Qualification process for the FIFA World Cup 2022 went on for one year from September 2020 to September 2022. Three nations qualified from the rounds of matches which are Canada, Mexico and the United States. While one was the playoff team of Costa Rica.
Africa has filled five places. The qualified teams include Cameroon, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana and Tunisia. There are 54 FIFA affiliated nations in CAF. In order to select nations for World Cup 2022, two rounds of matches were held. This process went on for two years. First round was played by 28 lowest ranked nations out of which 14 became winners. These 14 nations joined 26 other African nations in the second round. These 40 teams were split into 10 groups of four teams. The winners of each group went to finals.
Five teams qualified from Asia (AFC). These were qualified after completing four rounds. The fourth round was to qualify a playoff team. IR Iran, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Japan qualified on the basis of their performance in three rounds. While Australia qualified in the fourth round as a playoff team.