The FIFA Council unanimously approved the expansion plan, which will be implemented from the 2026 World Cup. The number of teams participating in the World Cup will increase from 32 to 48, and the group stage will be divided into 16 groups, with 3 teams in each group. The first two teams will enter the knockout stage. In order to avoid silent games, teams draw lots to decide the games, penalty shoot-out. With the expansion of the World Cup, there is still hope that the national football team will enter the knockout stage in 2026.
As soon as this news came out, the happiest group was China fans. The expansion of the World Cup is obviously good news for China football, and China football has been "depressed" all the year round. At present, there are only 4.5 places in Asia in the World Cup, and the 0.5 places are facing the fifth place in South America or the fourth place in Central and North America and the Caribbean. It is not difficult to win. Objectively speaking, there are almost four places in Asia. Although this distribution cannot be said to be unreasonable from the overall level of football, there is no doubt that FIFA cannot ignore the huge market and commercial value of Asia.
From the perspective of military expansion, the number of Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup will increase by about three, and the times predict that the Asian region will get 8.5 places at that time, which means that as long as the national football team can rank in the top eight in 12, there is hope to enter the World Cup again. Although judging from this top 12 competition, it is still difficult for poor national football teams to rush out of Asia, but it will undoubtedly bring excitement and hope to Chinese people. According to the football news report, on 202 1, the Football Association set a goal for the national football team, winning the remaining four top 40 matches and striving for 12 to reach the World Cup.
The national football goal is released! The Football Association requires the top 40 players to qualify for the World Cup. In the previous top 40 matches, the performance of the national football team was disappointing, losing to Syria and drawing with the Philippines. Therefore, with naturalized players like Daniel F. Akerson and Li Ke, the strength of the national football team is still mediocre. Now there are problems in the qualifying of the top 40 national football teams. However, Jiang, Fernando, Alan and other naturalized players have joined the national football team. Therefore, the Football Association is confident that the national football team will qualify from the top 40. At present, the national football team has 7 points, and the group is second; Syria 15 points, leaving the national football team at 8 points, ranking first in the group.
In the remaining 40 games, the national football team will play against Maldives, Guam, the Philippines and Syria. Earlier, the AFC has officially announced that the second round of the World Cup preliminaries and the Asian Cup qualifiers will be completed before. The game will continue. The final round of the qualifying round will begin in 2008.