Azkals start new journey to World Cup

by Peter Atencio

The Philippines is set to start a new journey to reach the World Cup.

It begins when the Philippine Azkals join the preliminary joint qualification round 2 competitions of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup China 2023

The qualifier is slated this September.

For starters, the Philippines was drawn to Group A and will join the likes of China PR, Syria, Maldives, and Guam.

Officials of the Philippine Football Federation learned of the groupings following a draw held at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last July 17.

The draw put the 40 participating teams into eight groups, and this is based from the FIFA World Rankings for June 2019.

Previously, the Azkals finished third in Group H, and proceeded to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019, and they made their debut as one of the 24 participating teams.


There will be teams which will advance to the next stage.

This includes the top teams from each group, and the four best second placed teams, and that’s the final round of the World Cup qualifiers.

From there, the teams that qualify for the AFC Asian Cup China 2023 will be known.

The remaining 32 teams will battle it out in the final round of the AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers.

“The road to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 finally begins. To be one of the 32 teams to qualify for the World Cup will bring a tremendous honor to the country,” said PFF president Mariano V. Araneta Jr.

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