More than four months after winning their ticket for the 2022 World Cup organized in Qatar, the Blues will finally know their opponents in the first round. The draw for the World Cup takes place on Friday April 1 in Doha, from 6 p.m. (to be followed live on TMC and beIN Sports). France info: sports explains how it works.
How does the draw take place?
The 32 qualified teams will be divided into four hats according to their FIFA ranking. Hat number 1 will be that of the top seeds. The draw will also start with hat n°1 before ending with hat n°4.
Each time a team is drawn, the assessor will then have to pick a ball from the group hat (from A to H) to find out which pool it will join. In total, there will therefore be eight pools of four teams.
How are the teams divided into the different hats?
It is the latest FIFA ranking, published Thursday, March 31, which is authentic for distributing the teams in the four hats of the draw. The teams ranked from 1 to 7 are positioned in pot n°1, the next eight in pot n°2, etc.
A few exceptions do exist, however. As a host country, Qatar is inevitably in the hat n°1. And the last three selections not yet qualified are automatically assigned to pot n°4, regardless of their FIFA ranking.
As a reminder, the last play-off semi-final of the Europe Zone (Scotland-Ukraine) was postponed to early June due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The winner will then be opposed in stride to Wales for the last ticket of the UEFA confederation. Finally, two intercontinental play-offs will take place on June 13 and 14: the Asian confederation against the South American confederation and the North, Central America and the Caribbean confederation against the oceanic confederation.
What is the composition of the hats?
Hat #1 : Qatar, England, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, France, Portugal
Hat #2 : Germany, Croatia, Denmark, United States, Mexico, Switzerland, Netherlands, Uruguay
Hat #3 : South Korea, Iran, Japan, Morocco, Poland, Senegal, Serbia, Tunisia
Hat #4 : Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Ghana, winner of the Asia jump-off (Australia or United Arab Emirates – Peru), winner of the Oceania jump-off (New Zealand – Costa Rica), last European representative (Ukraine, Scotland or Wales ).
What are the draw constraints?
“Wherever possible, FIFA ensures that no group contains several teams from the same qualifying area. This principle does not apply to Europe”underlines the regulations of the International Federation.
The organization, however, states that “each group thus has at least one European representative, but no more than two”. Therefore, given that 13 European nations will qualify for the World Cup, five of the eight groups will feature two teams from the Europe zone.