World Cup 2022 draw LIVE: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland learn qualifying fate
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the other European teams discovered who stands between them and a place in Qatar
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The 2022 World Cup draw is complete with European teams now knowing their opponents on the road to Qatar.
Gareth Southgate’s England were pulled out in Group I alongside Poland, who have faced the Three Lions in qualifying for the 1974, 1990, 1994, 2006 and 2014 World Cups, as well as taking on England in the finals in Mexico in 1986. England and Poland also met in qualifying for the 1992 and 2000 European Championships. They also face Hungary, Albania, Andorra and San Marino in matches which will be played between March and November next year.
Scotland are up against Denmark, Austria, Israel, the Faroe Islands and Moldova in Group F as they seek a first World Cup qualification since 1998. The Scots lost to Israel in a Nations League match last month.
The Republic of Ireland face reigning European champions Portugal, as well as Serbia, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan in Group A, while Northern Ireland face a tough group against Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
Follow live reaction and analysis from the draw in Zurich:
ALL EYES ON FIFA
One minute or so until FIFA go live on their stream and we start the draw. Who are you hoping your nation faces?!
15 MINS TO THE DRAW
Not long now. Excited? I bet. Qualifiers aren’t always the most intriguing, but the idea of both senior men’s European Championships and World Cup within the span of 16-17 months is pretty epic.
NIGHTMARE SCENARIO...
How about as difficult as possible, then?
England, Austria, Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Malta.
That’s about as tough as we reckon it could get: Austria have plenty of talent in their squad now, Norway have the likes of Martin Odegaard and Erling Haaland to contend with, Bosnia have been woeful recently but should put a better side together really, a long trip to Kazakhstan and the extra games against a Pot 6 side.
You’d still fancy the Three Lions to top the group…right?!
DREAM GROUP...
So let’s have a look at England’s possibilities and come up with a couple of scenarios. Best case? How would Gareth Southgate and Co feel about…
England, Romania, Northern Ireland, Luxembourg, Andorra. Not the worst for travel, a ‘local’ game yes but one where the majority of opponents play a league or two lower and some of the fodder of Europe.
Not terribly exciting, true, but it’s internationals - the seed system makes it this way.
FIXTURE DATES
Here’s that condensed fixture schedule for the qualifiers, with three games across international breaks to come next year once more.
March 2021: Matchday 1-3
September 2021: Matchday 4-6
October 2021: Matchday 7-8
November 2021: Matchday 9-10
March 2022: Playoffs
ALL THE NATIONS
Pot 1: Belgium, France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands.
Pot 2: Switzerland, Wales, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Slovakia, Romania.
Pot 3: Russia, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Czech Republic, Norway, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Greece, Finland.
Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Israel, Belarus, Georgia, Luxembourg.
Pot 5: Armenia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Lithuania, Latvia, Andorra.
Pot 6: Malta, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, San Marino.
GROUP GAMES
When do these qualifiers get played, then?
The plan right now is that they are all taken care of in an eight-month span for UEFA nations, starting in March 2021 and being done by November. Then there are play-off games after that for the final spots.
Ten group winners automatically reach Qatar 2022, 10 runners-up go into the play-offs where they will be joined by the two best group winners from the Nations League which haven’t already qualified or finished as runners-up.
That gives 12 teams altogether and there are three spots up for grabs, so three pathways of four nations. Single-leg play-off games will be played in March 2022 to determine who gets those last places at the finals.
Easy, right?!
AN HOUR TO GO
One more hour for FIFA types to practice their speeches, go over the silly one-liners that nobody ever laughs at and convince themselves we’re all desperate to see pointless video montages.
WEATHER RISKS!
Didn’t know this one existed as a thing, in all honesty. There are a few nations who are identified as a severe weather risk in winter and thus only a maximum of two can be in the same group.
Belarus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Ukraine are in this batch - and in addition, Iceland and the Faroes cannot be drawn together. Presumably that’s just too much cold for anyone to think about.
Finally, nations like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have travel restrictions, so they can only be paired with one nation maximum from the opposite side of the continent, so it couldn’t for example be each of England, Wales and Scotland all in the same group with Kazakhstan.
CONSTRAINTS
So, the tricky bits. First up, the Nations League finalists need two games free to play those fixtures at the same time as World Cup qualifiers are on, so that quartet goes in Groups A to E, the smaller groups with fewer fixtures.
They are Italy, Belgium, France and Spain, by the way, the League A winners.
Elsewhere there are, shall we say, political constraints. A few teams cannot face each other and thus must be in different groups. If one is drawn to go into a Group which already contains the other, we simply skip that group and go into the next available one.
- Armenia and Azerbaijan
- Gibraltar and Spain
- Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Kosovo and Serbia
- Kosovo and Russia
- Ukraine and Russia
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