The 2026 World Cup will be co-hosted by three countries for the first time, with the United States, Canada and Mexico hosting the World Cup, and FIFA will reform for the first time from 32 teams to 48 teams. In addition to the traditional top five of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan and South Korea, the new Asian Cup champions Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Iraq are all favourites.
The 2026 World Cup Qualifiers Asian Zone Round of 36 is divided into 9 groups, with four teams in each group, and the top two teams in the group advance to the round of 18. Among them, 9 teams have advanced to the round of 18, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq, Australia have advanced in advance, and the remaining 9 qualifying places will be born in the two rounds of the World Preliminary Tournament in June.
Kuwait was originally a strong team in West Asia, in the 80s of the last century, Kuwaiti football reached its peak, is a first-class team in West Asia, and won the 1980 Asian Cup, and also won the Gulf Cup championship many times, but then Kuwaiti football fell into a trough, talent was broken, and the world ranking continued to decline, and now the world is ranked 134th, becoming the fish belly team in Asia. In this World Preliminaries, Kuwait is in the same group as Qatar, Afghanistan and India.
Kuwait did not participate in the Qatar Asian Cup at the beginning of the year, in the first round of the World Preliminaries, Kuwait faced India at home, Kuwait besieged the whole field but was scoreless, but was fatally hit by India's counterattack, and finally lost 0-1 upset, suffering a black start. In the second round, Kuwait adjusted in time and rebounded in form, defeating Afghanistan with a score of 4-0 away. But in the third and fourth rounds of back-to-back home and away matches in March, Kuwait were beaten by Qatar with a score of 1-2 and 0-3 respectively.
After four rounds, in the standings of Group A, Qatar's strength is significantly higher than the other three teams by more than one gear, winning all four games and accumulating 12 points, scoring 16 goals and conceding only 2 goals, and locking the first place in the group 2 rounds in advance. Afghanistan and India are in 2nd and 3rd place with 4 points, while Kuwait is at the bottom of the group with only 1 win and 3 losses. In the final two rounds, Kuwait will face India and Afghanistan respectively.
Kuwait will face India away in the next round, and if they lose, they will be eliminated by one round early. Kuwait will need to win their final two rounds to overcome India and Afghanistan to qualify if they want to make it out of the group. If you only get one win and one draw, you will have to look at the faces of India and Afghanistan to qualify.
Compared to Kuwait's poor qualification situation, the national football team is in a better position to qualify, and in Group C, China are in the same group as South Korea, Thailand and Singapore. After 4 rounds, South Korea has 10 points, China has 7 points, Thailand has 4 points, Singapore has 1 point, South Korea will occupy a promotion place, while Singapore is basically out, and the remaining promotion place will be generated between China and Thailand.
On June 6, Beijing time, China will sit at home to face the Thai team, although the Chinese team is ahead of the Thai team by 3 points, but in the battle between China and Thailand, the Chinese team must win to ensure that the group qualifies, if the Chinese team draws with the Thai team, and China loses to South Korea in the last round, then the final national football team and Thailand will be the same 8 points, compared to the goal difference, the Thai team will overtake China to advance.