FIFA World Cup to kick off in Qatar

The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be the 22nd FIFA World Cup. It will be hosted in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022. This will be the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world, and the second World Cup held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan.
Due to excessive heat, the biggest sporting event in the world will be played in the autumn for the first time. France will be aiming to defend its 2018 title, but it will be a huge task as the other football powerhouses like Brazil, Belgium and Argentina could pose a massive challenge. This will be a special world cup, which begins on Sunday, as fans have been expecting something tremendous on-field action after all the action off-the-field and controversies. This could be the last world cup for one of the all-time greats – Messi and Ronaldo.
This World Cup draw produced an easy path to the knockout round for some of the world’s top teams, but others will be forced to grind out results at the start of their journeys in Qatar.
Brazil and Argentina are among the group favorites that should easily make it into the round of 16. The Netherlands could be put in that mix as well.
France, who won the 2018 World Cup, Spain, Germany, Portugal and a few others will need to be at their best right away to avoid an early let down. France has a dangerous Denmark side in its group. Spain and Germany are paired with each other. Portugal might be in the toughest group of them all alongside Uruguay, South Korea and Ghana.
Some of the group winners are easy to predict because of the gaps in talent between the top teams and their group stage foes. Others could feature a surprise team advancing to the knockout round. After all, this is the tournament where Italy, Spain and Germany dropped out in the group stage in 2010, 2014 and 2018 respectively after winning the previous version of the competition.
A total of 32 teams will participate in the tournament across 64 matches over a period of 29 days. The group stage will be a round-robin format with each of the 32 teams playing three matches. Teams will get three points for a win and one for a draw. The top two teams in each group will advance to the last 16. The knockout rounds will feature one-off matches, which can go to extra time and then penalties to decide the winner.
The third-place playoff between the two losing semi-finalists takes place on Dec. 17 at the Khalifa International Stadium.