Asian AFC Standings for World Cup Qualifiers
World Cup Qualifiers Start in October
Minimum Eight Asian Teams to Play in 2026 World Cup
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the first one to include 48 teams, expanded from 32. That should mean plenty of national teams make their debut at the tournament, which will be hosted by Canada, the USA, and Mexico. Five teams from the Asian Football Confederation qualified for the 2022 World Cup. Now, a minimum of eight AFC teams will qualify for World Cup 2026. We’ll take a look at the changes in the Asian AFC standings and format ahead of the first round of World Cup qualifiers in October.
Asian Representation at Qatar 2022
The World Cup teams from the AFC in Qatar 2022 were Iran, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Australia. Iran and Saudi Arabia were the third-round group winners, while South Korea and Japan were the group runners-up. The UAE and Australia finished third in the Asian AFC standings and advanced to the fourth-round playoff. Australia defeated the UAE 2-1 to advance to an intercontinental playoff vs Peru. There, Australia won in penalty kicks and advanced to Qatar 2022.
Saudi Arabia pulled off the upset of the tournament as they defeated eventual champions Argentina in their first match. The Green Falcons failed to advance to the knockout stage but South Korea, Japan, and Australia all made the round of 16. Japan shockingly won Group E over Germany and Spain. The round of 16 was as far as any Asian team got at Qatar 2022, as all three sides lost their first knockout stage matches. South Korea fell 4-1 to Brazil while Argentina defeated Australia 2-1. Japan lost to Croatia in penalties following a 1-1 draw.
Asian AFC World Cup Qualifiers
Asian AFC 2026 World Cup Qualifiers for kick-off in October. To start, the 22 lowest-ranked teams in the confederation will contest a playoff. The 11 fixtures will be played in a home-and-away format and the winners will advance to the second round. In the second round, the 36 remaining teams will be divided into nine groups of four. They will contest a double round-robin and the top two teams from each group will advance to the third round and AFC Asian Cup.
In the third round, the 18 remaining teams will be split into three groups of six teams. Then, they’ll contest a home-and-away double round-robin and the top two teams in the Asian AFC Standings will qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile, the third and fourth-placed teams in each group will play in the fourth round. In the fourth round, there will be two groups of three teams each.
Within each group, there will be a round-robin at neutral sites and the winners of each group qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Then, the group runners-up will participate in the fifth-round playoff. The AFC hasn’t announced the format of the playoff yet but the winners will advance to the inter-confederation playoff. So, there could be as many as nine Asian teams in North America in 2026. As of April 2026, the top nine ranked teams in the confederation were Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, UAE, and Oman, in that order.
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