DHAKA, July 17, 2019 (BSS) – The Bangladesh national football team have been pitted in Group E of the second round of 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers as the draw was held at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Bangladesh are placed in the group alongside host Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan and India. The qualifiers will begin from September 5, 2019 and will take place until June 9, 2020.
Forty teams were put in five pots and the seeding for the draw were based on the latest FIFA rankings. Bangladesh were in Pot 5 due to their low ranking. The teams were split into eight groups.
Bangladesh beat Laos 1-0 in the first round of the qualifiers last month to become one of the six teams to join the 34 top teams for the second round of the qualifiers, which serves as a joint platform for both the World Cup and the Asian Cup.
The group winners and four best runners-up (12 teams in total) will advance to the third round of Asian World Cup qualifying.
Those 12 sides will also automatically qualify for the 2023 Asian Cup, with the next best 24 teams competing in a separate qualifying competition to determine the remaining sides that will participate at China 2023.
Bangladesh have got a balanced group considering their recent performance against Laos but the boys in red and green have to fight hard in order to advance to the next round of World Cup qualifiers.
The group stage will be played in a double round-robin format where all teams will face each other twice in home and away conditions.
Qatar, as seen by their performance in the recently-concluded Copa America 2019, will be hugely tough opponents for Bangladesh while they will also face difficult challenge against Oman.
Bangladesh however should see positives in India and Afghanistan compared to other group opponents. Bangladesh has played against India a total of 28 times and has suffered defeat on 15 occasions.