From March 24 to March 25, Beijing time, the World Cup qualifiers on all continents continued, and there are only about 8 months before the Qatar World Cup, and the qualifiers on multiple continents have also entered the final stage.
However, there is still one continent qualifier that has just begun!
How different is the game on this continent?
Half of the teams have announced their retirements, and one of the games that have already been played has been declared invalid, leaving only two teams in one of the qualifiers, in which case both teams have all qualified from the group. In extreme cases, one of the teams only needs to win 3 games to advance to the final round of the World Cup!
I don't know whether such a comfortable schedule will be envied by the national football team. Perhaps, the national football team joined this continent and can really reach the final stage.
This is the World Cup qualifier in Oceania.
At the moment, qualifying in Oceania is in full swing in Qatar, and yes, none of the teams have a home stadium, and all the matches are played in a neutral position.
In fact, before the start of the qualifiers in Oceania, there were 11 more participating teams, and as a result, two teams, including American Samoa, announced their withdrawals, and only 9 teams were left in the qualifiers in Oceania.
According to the schedule, the last two teams will need to play play-offs, they are cook islands and Tonga, to decide a place to advance to the quarterfinals. Unexpectedly, the Tonga volcano erupted, and in desperation, Tonga announced its withdrawal from the competition, and the Cook Islands won without a fight.
The play-offs for the first stage were gone, and the remaining 8 teams were divided into two groups.
The four teams in Group B are temporarily "intact", namely New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia.
At present, New Zealand has won 2 games, scoring 5 goals and conceding 0 goals to top the group table. Papua New Guinea and Fiji scored 3 points, and New Caledonia scored 0 points in 2 games.
Group A originally consisted of Tahiti, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Cook Islands. In the first round, solomon islands beat the Cook Islands 2-0, which was also the penultimate match of this group!
Knowing that each team should play three group games, why has the schedule been reduced again?
Because, on the night after the defeat to solomon Islands, the Cook Islands announced that a total of 15 players and 1 team staff member had been diagnosed positive in the screening, including Gover and Lee Harmon, who also appeared in the first game. As the following competitions could not be put together, the Cook Islands announced their withdrawal.
Vanuatu also tested a large number of positive cases before the start of the match, so Vanuatu had no choice but to announce its withdrawal.
At this point, there are only two teams left in Group A, and how will the next qualifiers be conducted. The Oceania Football Association announced that the Solomon Islands' 2-0 win over the Cook Islands was void, and given that only Solomon Islands and Tahiti were left in the group, the two teams only needed to play once, with the winning team ranking first in the group and the 0-0 team advancing to the second place in the group.
Later, the Oceania Final Four will determine a qualifying spot for the intercontinental play-offs. That is to say, in theory, the team in Group A only needs to win 3 games to get straight to Qatar!