The second stage of the 2026 World Cup and the 2027 Asian Cup joint qualifiers: 36 teams (the top 25 teams in Asia and the 1 1 team advanced in the first stage) will be divided into 9 groups (4 teams in each group) for the home and away round robin, and the top two teams (*** 18 teams) will advance to the AFC Champions League Asian qualifiers.
AFC Asian Regional Qualifiers: 18 Teams will be divided into 3 groups (6 teams in each group) for the home and away round robin, and the top two teams in each group (***6 teams) will qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Asian play-offs: The third and fourth place in three groups of AFC Asian regional qualifiers will be divided into two groups for a single round-robin duel.
National football strength
The new 1 play-off places in Asia have made the national football team see the dawn of the impact on the World Cup. According to the regulations, the top teams will get a bye to avoid the advantages of the strong teams. If the national football team can raise its ranking to about 70 in the warm-up matches in the next few years, it will be able to obtain this valuable qualification for play-offs, and then strive to beat the weaker opponents and complete the final sprint.
In fact, frequent warm-up matches are the shortcut to improve the world ranking. The Asian World Cup qualifiers took a long time. As long as you can reach the top 18, there will be plenty of opportunities to improve your ranking points. Compared with the strength of Asian games, the national football team is fully capable of ranking through warm-up matches. In the past few years, the Indian national team has upgraded its ranking to the top 90 through a large number of warm-up matches.