World Cup qualification: Germany in the best pot when they draw

The FIFA World Football Federation announced on Friday (27.11.20) the details of the draw for the 2022 World Cup qualifier. As a result, the German national team is, as expected, in European lottery number 1 – but unpleasant opponents are possible.

By Chaled Nahar

By assigning the best teams to the lottery pot, Germany will avoid a multitude of tough opponents such as France, Spain or England in the draw on 7 December 2020 at 18:00 in Zurich.

Six lottery pots for ten groups

The seed list for European World Cup qualification is determined by the FIFA world ranking. The top ten European teams in the standings are in Lot 1. Germany remained on the border with Pot 2 for a long time, but were ultimately not eliminated from Pot 1 despite a 0: 6 against Spain. There are a total of six pots from which the ten groups are drawn.

Germany versus Lottery 6 instead of Nations League Finals

All 55 UEFA member associations send their national teams to the competition. The top five groups A to E will have five teams, the other five groups F to J will have six teams. Each group receives a team from Pot 1 to 5 first. The four League A group winners of the Nations League must play in groups with five teams. This will keep a clear date for these teams to play the Nations League Final Tournament. Only groups of six receive an opponent from pot 6.

For Germany, who missed this final round, a group of six with one of the 6 lottery teams is very likely: Republic of Moldova, Malta, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and San Marino.

The process: only group winners are safe at the World Cup

UEFA has 13 starting places at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. And this is how they are distributed:

Draw with three restrictions

There are three restrictions on group drawing. All of them can affect the German team if one of the limited detachable teams ends up in the DFB selection group.

Limitation 1: wars and conflicts

The UEFA Executive Committee has ruled out a series of meetings due to wars, conflicts and political tensions. The following teams cannot therefore be drawn into a group:

Limitation 2: cold winter

In order not to jeopardize match operations, the UEFA Executive Committee allows a maximum of two teams per group, whose country is considered one with a “hard winter”.

The following countries are on this list: Belarus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Ukraine.

The rule has been tightened for the Faroe Islands and Iceland, as UEFA fears a “particularly hard winter” here: the two countries cannot meet in the groups.

Limitation 3: long journeys

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iceland form the geographical boundaries of the UEFA area. These three teams and their opponents should be spared too many extremely long journeys, which is why they can compete against up to one opponent from particularly distant countries.

Iceland against a maximum of a team of: Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel.

Azerbaijan against up to a team of: Island, Gibraltar, Portugal.

Kazakhstan against a maximum of a team of: Andorra, England, France, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Iceland, Malta, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Wales.

Corona also leads to “three days of play” in World Cup qualifiers

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, some of the World Cup qualifiers have had to be rescheduled, so there will be three play dates in at least two international match windows in 2021.

In autumn 2020, international match windows with three fixtures per team were criticized as too much of a burden on teams. In view of the pandemic, travel activities for test games in particular have been criticized as an unnecessary risk of infection.

Qatar tournament under fire

Under current plans, the final round of the World Cup will take place in Qatar from 21 November to 18 December 2022. The host country has been criticized for years for human rights violations, exploitation of guest workers and corruption in the assignment of the World Cup. The sports program and WDR Sport Inside have repeatedly reported the complaints in Qatar.

Those: sportschau.de