At the beginning of the new year, FIFA released the 2022 annual calendar, and the Qatar World Cup became the main theme of this year's international football.
Among them, among all the important schedule reminders that have been released, the World Cup group draw ceremony held in April this year has attracted much attention. At that time, FIFA will unveil the World Cup group situation in Qatar, and the dust of the 32 teams will be settled.
This year, the most important event in international football is the Qatar World Cup. It was also the first time the World Cup had been held in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
FIFA has confirmed that the World Cup group draw ceremony will take place in Doha in early April. At that time, the 32 participating teams will settle for the seats.
At present, brazil, Argentina, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Belgium, England, Croatia, the Netherlands, Serbia and Switzerland have received World Cup tickets.
The fate of European champions Italy and Portugal will be revealed after the end of the European Zone play-offs in March this year.
In addition to the European zone play-offs, the intercontinental play-offs for World Cup tickets will also be the highlight of international football this year.
According to the results of the draw, the teams that qualify for the Asian zone play-offs will compete with the fifth place in the South American zone to determine an intercontinental place. The Central American and Caribbean teams will play against the Oceania team.
At present, the Asian top 12 has completed 6 rounds, Iran and South Korea are in the top two of Group A, basically locking the World Cup tickets;
Saudi Arabia and Japan are in the top two places in Group B, of which Saudi Arabia has basically qualified, Japan and Australia are close in points, and Japan leads by 1 point. The two teams will compete for a direct qualifying spot in the final four rounds of the World Preliminary Rounds, with the other facing a play-off.
Once in the play-offs, both Australia and Japan will face a third place in Group A. For now, the UAE, Lebanon and Iraq are all likely to be play-off opponents. If the third place in Group A (play-off opponents) is defeated, there will be a matchup against the South American team.
Currently, teams in the South American division that could win 0.5 qualifying places include Peru, Uruguay, Colombia and Chile.
In addition to the Qatar World Cup, FIFA will also make up the U-20 Women's World Cup and the U-17 Women's World Cup this year, scheduled for August and October, respectively, in Costa Rica and India.
It is worth mentioning that these two events were originally scheduled to be held in 2020, but in view of the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the competition has been postponed for two years and will be re-held this year.