Sportzwiki FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is scheduled to be held in Qatar from November 21 to December 18.
This year’s edition will be the 22nd edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international men’s football championship.
The forthcoming tournament will be the second World Cup to be held in Asia and first-ever World Cup to be held in the Arab world.
This will also be the first World Cup that will not be held in May, June or July and will be instead held in November-December.
The reason behind changing the traditional time frame for the tournament is the intense summer heat of Qatar.
A total of 32 teams will be participating in FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The competition will kickoff with the match between Senegal and the Netherlands at Al Thumama Stadium, Doha.
The final is scheduled at the Lusail Iconic Stadium. 32 teams will be participating in this year’s FIFA World Cup.
Except host Qatar, the remaining 31 teams qualified through their qualifying tournaments.
Qatar qualified for the tournament directly as the hosts.
FIFA conduct qualifying competitions in all the six continents.
All FIFA member associations (211 members) were eligible to play the qualifiers.
Of the 32 nations qualified to play at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 24 countries participated at the last edition in 2018.
Qatar are the only team who are making their debut in this year’s competition.
On the other hand, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Ghana, Cameroon and the United States are making a return to the competition after missing the previous edition in Russia.
The 32 teams have been divided into eight groups of four teams each.
The groups were decided following a draw in Doha in April 2022.
The 32 teams were allocated into four pots based on the FIFA Men’s World Rankings of 31 March 2022.
The pots were decided on the basis of the FIFA ranking.
Hosts Qatar were placed in pot 1 along with the world’s top-ranked teams.
The next eight highest-ranked qualifiers go into pot 2.
Pot 3 had teams ranked in the 20s by FIFA while the last pot contained the five lowest-ranked teams, along with the placeholders for the two inter-confederation play-off winners and the UEFA Path A play-off winner.
Here are the groups: A total of 8 stadiums will host the games in FIFA World Cup 2022.
All the venues are situated within a 21-mile radius of central Doha, easily accessible by the metro.
Each venue not only represents Qatari culture but have also been hailed as architectural marvels.
The eight stadiums are , Khalifa International Stadium: Stadium 974: Al Bayt Stadium: Al Janoub Stadium: Al Thumama Stadium: Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium: Lusail Iconic Stadium: Education City Stadium: A total of 64 matches will be played in FIFA World Cup 2022.
The tournament will be played over 28 days.
There are 48 matches in the group stage and 16 matches in the knockout round.
Each group will play 6 games each, meaning 8 groups will play a total of 48 league games.
The top two teams from each group will then qualify for the quarterfinals.
It will be followed by two semifinals and the final.
FIFA World Cup 2022 schedule for group matches (Time in IST): source