Bahrain set for World Cup qualifiers draw

TDT | Manama                           

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s senior men’s national football team will today learn of their opponents in the second round of continental qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The draw ceremonies for stages one and two of the qualifiers are scheduled to take place at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The draw for the second phase is scheduled for an 11am start, Bahrain time. The Bahrainis are in pot two along with Uzbekistan, China, Jordan, Syria, Vietnam, Palestine, Kyrgyz Republic and India.

The AFC confirmed yesterday the seedings for the participating teams. The first two rounds of the World Cup qualifiers also act as qualification for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. There are five rounds in all in the AFC qualifiers’ format for the World Cup.

Eight Asian teams will book their tickets to the global showcase plus potentially another following an inter-confederation play-off. In the first round of qualifying, 20 teams will be divided into ten pairings, with each pair to play one home and one away match on October 12 and 17, 2023 respectively.

The 10 winners will proceed to round two, where they are joined by the remaining 26 teams, including Bahrain. These 36 sides are to be drawn into nine groups of four, competing against each team in a home-and-away round-robin format, between November 2023 and June 2024.

The nine group winners and group runners-up advance to the third round. In addition to this, they will also automatically qualify for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. In the third round of the World Cup qualifiers, 18 teams will be divided into three groups of six.

After playing one another on a home-and-away basis, the top two of each group qualify directly for the World Cup, while the third and fourth-placed teams advance to the fourth round. In round four, the six teams are divided into two groups of three.

They play against each other once in a neutral venue. The winners of each group qualify for the World Cup, and the runners-up of each group advance to the fifth round. There, they will compete home-and-away over two legs to determine the Asian representation at the inter-confederation play-offs.

Bahrain advanced to inter-confederation play-offs twice in the past first facing Trinidad and Tobago for a berth in the 2006 World Cup and then against New Zealand for a place in the 2010 competition but narrowly lost by a single goal both times.