New Delhi: Not many days are left in the grand opening ceremony of FIFA WC 2022 to be held in Qatar, post which the much-speculated tournament will see the first clash between Qatar and Ecuador on November 20 at 9.30 pm IST. The best 32 soccer teams from across the world are participating in the league, and the battle to nab the WC title will last till December 18.
Before the biggest football tournament commences in Qatar, here we have brought all that you need to know about the forthcoming league.
Groups
Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands
Group B: England, Iran, USA, Wales
Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland
Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia
Group E: Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan
Group F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia
Group G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon
Group H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, Republic of Korea
Format
In the group matches, each team will face off one match against the three other squads of their group. The filtered two teams from every group will advance to the ‘Round of 16’. Then will begin the knockout matches, wherein the winning squads will move forward and the losing teams will exit the World Cup.
Out of the total 8 matches in the ‘Round of 16’, eight out of 16 teams will reach the quarter-finals, where there will be a total of 4 matches, and four winning squads will enter the semi-finals. The grand WC finals will be played after the semi-finals.
Fixtures
The group stage matches will be played from November 20 to December 2. Round of 16 matches will be held from December 3 to 6. This will be followed by the quarter-finals on December 9 and 10, the semi-finals on December 13 and 14, the third-place match on December 17 and then the final on December 18.
5 different times have been set for all these matches. Matches will start at 8.30 pm, 9.30 pm, 12.30 pm, 3.30 pm and 6.30 pm IST respectively.
