The 2022 World Cup qualifying play-offs will deliver their verdict by June 13.
Who will the Blues meet for their first match of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on November 22? The final candidates, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, meet in the host country on Tuesday, with the winner then playing their place in Group D against Peru on June 13.
After the qualification of Wales on Sunday for the first World Cup in history in an Arab country from November 21 to December 18, there are only two tickets left to win.
The first will go to the winner of the Asia-South America intercontinental play-off between the Emirates, Australians and Peruvians and will be awarded after two matches, on the first Tuesday (9:00 p.m. local time, 8:00 p.m. French time) between the United Arab Emirates and Australia, the second a week later between the winner of this first duel and Peru. The lucky winner will be placed in a group comprising, in addition to the French world champions, the Danes and the Tunisians.
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The last ticket for Qatar will be played between Costa Rica and New Zealand who will decide on June 14 for a place in the group E record, with Spain, Germany and Japan.
These last three matches of the long qualifying campaign for the 2022 World Cup will take place in Qatar, in the Ahmad ben Ali stadium, which will host seven matches, including a round of 16, during the World Cup.
Australia, 42nd in the Fifa rankings and 3rd in its Asian zone qualifying group, is aiming for a fifth consecutive participation in the final phase of a World Cup, but it has won only two of its last eight matches. The “Socceroos” are, in addition, deprived of their playmaker Tom Rogic (53 selections).
“On an equal footing”
The 2-1 friendly win over Jordan on June 1 was a sluggish one, but it gave coach Graham Arnold reason for hope. “In recent matches, when we were down 1-0 (…), we fell apart but tonight that was not the case.“, he underlined, admitting all the same that there was”still a lot of work».
The challenge for the Australians will be to create play, as they only scored from set pieces against Jordan. For the United Arab Emirates, led since February only by the Argentinian Rodolfo Arruabarrena (who is coaching for the first time at international level), it is a second qualification in the final phase of a World Cup, after 1990, which is at stake.
But the 68th nation in the FIFA rankings could not do better than a 1-1 draw against the modest Gambia (123rd) on May 29 in a friendly match. His hopes rest largely on Ali Mabkhout, top scorer in qualifying for the World Cup for all teams with fourteen goals … but only four goals in his last eleven selections.
«I think both teams are on an equal footing, given our close matches over the last few years and the fact that we finished third in our respective groups.in qualifying, says Mabkhout on the FIFA website.
«We must focus and avoid mistakes“Concludes the one who scored the winning goal (1-0) in the last opposition between the two teams in the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup in 2019.