The World Cup draw is in Qatar on Friday, even though the entire field is not yet complete. While we don’t know all the teams, we do know quite a bit about how things will turn out. Here’s an introduction to the world’s greatest sporting spectacle.
When is the World Cup?
The opening game is on November 21 (three days before Thanksgiving in the United States). Over the next month, all matches will take place in a small circle of eight stadiums in and around Qatar’s capital, Doha, making it the most compact World Cup in history.
The final is on December 18 – a week before Christmas, meaning Doha airport on the morning of December 19 will look like the entrance to a Walmart on Black Friday.
Wait, aren’t they playing the World Cup in July?
They always had, until Qatar got it.
Qatar, like the other bidders, initially suggested holding the tournament in its normal summer window, brushing aside any suggestion it couldn’t do so using cooling technology that didn’t exist at the time. As The Times wrote on voting day in 2010:
Qatar’s bid overcame concerns about heat that could reach 120 degrees in the summer. Officials say they will build air-conditioned stadiums and spend $4 billion to upgrade three arenas and build nine new ones in a compact area connected by a subway system.
It took more than four years, but in 2015, FIFA, the world governing body of football, finally concluded that a summer World Cup in temperatures of 120 degrees could cause unnecessary problems (such as the death of fans and players) and agreed. move the tournament to the relatively cooler months of November and December.
What about the competition matches that normally take place?
Oh, the leagues grumbled. Very much. But they lost.
The transition to winter will disrupt not only league competitions in Europe and elsewhere, but also the lucrative UEFA Champions League, requiring seasons to start earlier or end later, or both.
A winter World Championship would also leave the professionals who don’t go to Qatar – taking less than 800 of the world’s players – with a mid-season break of up to two months, once the pre-tournament camps and friendlies and the rest after the cup are calculated .
Fox Sports, which has paid hundreds of millions of dollars for United States broadcast rights, will have to shift a month of football games around another fall sport that’s taking center stage at that time of year. Have you ever heard of the NFL?
How many teams are participating?
A total of 32. They are divided into eight groups of four. The top two finishers in each group advance to the round of 16. After that, the World Cup is a straight knockout tournament.
Which countries have qualified?
Qatar automatically qualified as hosts and 28 other teams have joined so far. Those are most of the biggest teams from Europe and South America: England and Germany, Brazil and Argentina, France and Spain.
Canada is participating. On Wednesday evening, the United States and Mexico entered the field.
Ukraine can still go. Russia won’t do that.
Three places have not yet been claimed. One comes from Europe, where the play-off of Ukraine against Scotland was postponed by war. Those teams will meet in June, with the winner taking on Wales for last place in Europe.
The other two entries come from two intercontinental playoffs that month: Costa Rica will face New Zealand, the survivor of Oceania, in one game, and Peru, the fifth-placed team from South America, will face off against an Asian team, either Australia or the United Arab Emirates.
Are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo going?
Yes and yes.
Argentina and Messi qualified in November. But Portugal and Ronaldo had to sweat out a European play-off after botching the guaranteed route to the group stage final.
Who won’t be there?
Erling Haaland, for example. (Norway did not qualify.) Mohamed Salah. (Egypt lost to Senegal on penalties for the second time in a month.)
Oh, and Italy. But that’s not new to them. The Italians also missed the 2018 tournament. Oops.
When do the games take place?
Qatar is in the same time zone as Moscow. So whatever strategy you used to get up early (or stay up late) for the games in 2018 will work this time around. But it means that the kick-off must take place as early as 4 a.m. and no later than 2 p.m.
How can I see who my team is playing against?
The draw for the World Cup is Friday in Qatar. In it, all 29 teams that have qualified and the three teams yet to be determined will be placed in groups. So at the end of the day you know which three teams your team will play against in the group stage and you have a good idea of who can wait in the knockout rounds.
Who are the favourites?
The usual suspects qualified early, so much so that our soccer columnist Rory Smith wrote in November that “there’s a good chance the winner is already here.”
What exactly the tournament will look like from the day Qatar was announced as host is not yet known. However, the identities of the teams that will contest it are – for the most part – extremely familiar.
Most, if not all, of the traditional contenders are already here: a European contingent made up of 10 countries led by France, the defending champions and Belgium, officially the best team in the world, as well as countries like Spain and England and Germany. They are joined by the two great powerhouses of South America, Brazil and Argentina.
More than a dozen teams have joined the party since those verdicts were written last year. That is, it is still wide open in March.
