Last night and this morning Beijing time, the regional qualifiers were in full swing:
In the Asian Group B match, Japan won 2-0 away to Australia, China drew 1-1 with Saudi Arabia, Oman won 1-0 away to Vietnam, Japan and Saudi Arabia both qualified early, and Australia determined that it was third in the group and will participate in the play-offs.
In Group A, South Korea won 2-0 at home to Iran, jumping to the top of the group, and both teams have already qualified in advance in the first two rounds, Iraq won 1-0 at home to the UAE, Syria won 3-0 away to Lebanon, the UAE currently accumulates 9 points, Iraq has 8 points, the last round of the two teams will be a play-off place, Syria and Lebanon are out early.
In the play-offs in the European Zone, this year has been changed to a single-game knockout system, four teams in a group, first play two semi-finals, and then play a final, resulting in a qualifying place. Group A Wales beat Austria 2-1 to reach the final, another semi-final Scotland vs Ukraine postponed due to the war; Group B Sweden beat the Czech Republic 1-0 to reach the final, Sweden will compete for a place with directly promoted Poland. Group C Portugal beat Turkey 3-1, North Macedonia beat Italy 1-0, portugal and Italy met in the division final.
In south America, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay occupy the top four, advancing to the World Cup ahead of schedule, and peru, Colombia and Chile will compete fiercely for a play-off place in the final round. The African Zone Qualifiers will be 10 teams to start two or two PK, two rounds to produce 5 qualifying places, the game will be played tonight. There are still two rounds left in the Central and North American region, and the top five teams are currently likely to qualify, leaving aside.
The World Cup has been expanded to 32 teams since 1998, but there are still many teams that are difficult to enter the World Cup, and from the perspective of the teams that have been eliminated so far, there are three teams with great influence, and they have not been able to enter the World Cup, which is really unfortunate for each other.
Unfortunate third place: Chinese men's football team, in order to gamble on this World Cup, the Chinese Football Association even played a naturalization idea, but in the end can only rank fifth in the group, whether it is the final points and the process of the game, this year's round of 12 is much worse than the previous one.
The national football team is indeed very dish, but this session of man-made disasters are also many, first Li Tie tossed, unwilling to use naturalization, and then Li Xiaopeng, who took office, was more dishes, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, the Chinese Super League was basically abolished in the past two years, the state of the players was indeed difficult to guarantee, coupled with salary cuts and other reasons, this group of people whose professional quality was originally very low, finally they could defeat the Vietnamese team and create a history of shame in Chinese football.
Unfortunate second place: The Italian team, as the European Champion of ST, the Italian team has countless fans all over the world. Before the penultimate round of the group stage, Italy ranked first with 14 points, and Switzerland ranked second with 14 points due to the disadvantage of goal difference. In the penultimate round, Italy played at home against Switzerland, the winner will be out of the line early, but the two teams battled 1-1, the last round, Italy away 0-0 by Northern Ireland forced to draw, Switzerland is a 4-0 home win over Bulgaria, jumping to the first group to qualify, Italy fell into playing a play-off.
What is even more lamentable is that in two legs against direct opponents Switzerland, Italy's core Jorginho has conceded penalties. Facing North Macedonia in the early hours of this morning, it can be said that the 12 play-off teams are the weakest on paper, and the dominant Italian team has scored 32 shots on goal, and the opponent has scored a goal with 2 shots.
Unfortunate first place: Russian team, if the Chinese team and the Italian team are self-inflicted and cannot live, then the Russian team is purely lying guns, because of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Russian team was banned by FIFA and UEFA, originally the play-off Russian team will play against the Polish team, but because of the ban, the Polish team directly advanced, and the opponent after the promotion has also been produced today, that is, the Swedish team mentioned above.