PARIS, Dec 6, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – European nations led by reigning champions
France will on Monday learn their opponents in qualifying as they begin the
long and congested road towards the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The draw for the qualifying stage will take place in a virtual ceremony at
FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, allowing France and leading lights like Kylian
Mbappe to start tracing out their route to a successful defence of the trophy
in Doha.
Two years since their triumph in Moscow, the French look the strongest
side around, and recently qualified for the finals of the Nations League that
take place next October.
“We mustn’t start believing we are better than we are but we do have the
feeling that we can still do some great things,” France coach Didier
Deschamps said this week as he looked ahead to a packed 2021.
Qatar and FIFA recently celebrated marking two years to go until the start
of the controversial tournament, which will start on November 21, 2022 and
conclude with the final on December 18 after being moved to the northern
hemisphere winter.
Playing with the dates of football’s biggest events has become commonplace
due to the coronavirus pandemic, and qualifying is scheduled to start with
three rounds of matches next March, before the delayed Euro 2020 tournament
goes ahead in June and July.
France will be joined in the first pot of seeds for Monday’s draw by the
world’s top-ranked side Belgium, reigning European champions Portugal and
Croatia, the team they defeated in the 2018 final in Moscow.
England, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands will also be
top seeds, with only the winners of each of the 10 groups qualifying
automatically for the finals.
– Uphill struggle –
The 10 runners-up will go into play-offs alongside the two best Nations
League group winners who miss out on qualifying via the traditional path.
Those play-offs will produce three more qualifiers in total, with Europe
having 13 spots out of the 32 at the finals.
France, Belgium, Italy and Spain will all be placed in qualifying groups
of five teams by virtue of having qualified for the final four of the Nations
League in Italy next October.
It all points to a continuing pile-up of matches.
For example, a team that reaches the final of Euro 2020 can expect to play
17 competitive games between March and November next year.
Club managers like Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp have bitterly criticised the
number of games their players are being asked to play for club and country,
and that issue is likely to come to the fore again over the course of 2021.
The continent’s more modest nations have had their access to the European
Championship opened up by that competition’s expansion to 24 teams, but
reaching the World Cup promises to be a far more arduous task.
For example, after qualifying for Euro 2020 to reach their first major
tournament since the 1998 World Cup, Scotland will face an uphill struggle to
make it to Qatar.
Their world ranking of 48 means they are in the third pot of seeds, so
could go into a group with, for example, France and Switzerland.
Scotland’s prospects of making the World Cup were not helped by their
failure to top their Nations League group last month.
“The play-off route via the Nations League has gone — we’ll just need to
qualify from the group. That has got to be the aim,” said Scotland manager
Steve Clarke.
World Cup qualifying has already started elsewhere, including in South
America which began its marathon 10-team round-robin tournament in October.