According to the latest news from the AFC, the group draw ceremony for the next World Qualifiers Asian Zone will be held on July 27 this year, and the World Qualifiers will also be the group draw for the Asian Qualifiers (the two competitions partially coincide). The draw will be divided into brackets based on the FIFA ranking on July 20, and the national football team, currently ranked 11th in Asia, will unsurprisingly enter the draw as a second-tier team.
Since the 2018 World Qualifiers, the Asian Preliminary Round and the World Preliminary Round have partially overlapped, so the draw has also been carried out. A total of 47 teams under the AFC team participated in the draw, with the top 25 teams qualifying in the first phase and the last 22 teams playing against each other to determine the 11 teams that advanced to the second stage.
The second stage is the round of 36 of the Asian zone of the World Qualifiers, which is divided into 9 groups of 4 teams each. According to the FIFA ranking, it is divided into four brackets, and the top 9 teams are seeded teams, based on the FIFA ranking on July 20. With only two warm-up matches left in June before the FIFA ranking was determined on July 20, the national football team has basically no chance of breaking into the top nine in Asia.
The top 2 teams from the 9 groups in the round of 36, a total of 18 teams will advance to the next stage of the World Qualifiers, and also qualify for the 2027 Asian Cup finals. The remaining 18 teams will decide the remaining 6 main tournament places in the Asian Cup, and the rhythm of the World Preliminary Round and the Asian Preliminary Round on the same track will end.
The first stage of the Asian Preliminary Round and the World Preliminary Round will be played in October, and the national football team will not participate in this stage of the competition, the second stage of the Asian Preliminary Round and the round of 36 will start in November this year, and the final two rounds will be completed in June next year.