What does the World Cup mean?

The European preliminaries are the European Cup and the European Championship qualifiers. Only group ranking, no champion. Top teams can enter the final stage, usually starting two years before the European Cup.

On April 14 and 16, at the meeting of the AFC Executive Committee, the new competition system of the 20 18 Asian World Cup was officially adopted. The biggest change is that the top ten in the final stage of Asian regional qualifiers will become the top 12, so that there will be no team bye in each round and the game will become more fair. In addition, the number of teams participating in the final stage of the 20 19 Asian Cup will be increased from 16 to 24, and the qualifiers for the second half of the World Cup in Russia will be merged with those for the 20 19 Asian Cup.