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Today, in Zurich, Switzerland, at 5:00 p.m. in Lisbon, in a virtual ceremony, the European zone (UEFA) qualifying draw for the 2022 World Cup, in Qatar, with 55 countries in the race. The Portugal National Team (5th place in the FIFA rankings) is placed in pot 1, which means that it avoids theoretically stronger opponents, namely Belgium, France, England, Spain, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands , in addition to Croatia and Denmark.
The draw will divide the teams into 10 groups, five of them with five teams and the other five with six nations. out of five (but it never stays the same, of course).
13 European nations will qualify for the final phase of Qatar, which will take place between November 21 and December 18, 2022: the ten group winners and three more teams via play-off, out of a total of 12 who will compete for him: the ten runners-up in the qualifying groups and the two winning group teams in the last edition of the Nations League that have the best ranking and have failed to stay in the top two places in their qualifying group. Then, the system will be similar to the Euro-2020 play-off, with the 12 nations divided into three tracks, with a semi-final and a final, qualifying the three winners.
Qualifying games in 2021 begin on March 24 and end on November 16, with play-offs scheduled for March 24/25 and March 29/30, 2022.
On the basis of previous decisions of the UEFA Executive Committee, which have to do with geopolitical issues, the first condition of the draw is that the following teams cannot be in the same group: Armenia / Azerbaijan, Gibraltar / Spain, Kosovo / Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo / Serbia, Kosovo / Russia and Ukraine / Russia.
On the other hand, due to the severe winter in some countries, which can put games at risk, only two out of this list of ten countries can be in the same group: Belarus, Estonia, Faro Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Ukraine. However, it should be noted that Iceland and the Féroe Islands can never be together, as they are considered the most problematic cases in this lot.
UEFA has also announced another limitation that relates to what it defines as “excessive travel” and that involves three destinations: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iceland. To do this, a table was created and the countries in it cannot have more than one opponent in the group that causes these “excessive trips”. In the case of Portugal, it cannot be with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, only with one of them.
Here is the composition of the pots:
Pot 1: France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Holland and Belgium.
Pot 2: Switzerland, Wales, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Slovakia and Romania.
Pot 3: Russia, Hungary, Ireland, Czech Republic, Norway, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Greece and Finland
Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Israel, Belarus, Georgia and Luxembourg.
Pot 5: Armenia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia and Andorra.
Pot 6: Malta, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and San Marino
