AFC qualification World Cup 2022 (July 2021)

The draw for the Asian third qualification round for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar has been made some weeks ago. This is the final group stage with two groups of 6 teams. The ten group matches will be played between September and March next year.

Numbers one and two from each group qualify for Qatar. The two numbers three play a single-legged play-off in June  2022 to determine the Asian number five which will play an interconfederational play-off (also in June 2022) against an opponent from a yet unknown confederation (the CONCACAF 4th, the CONMEBOL 5th or the OFC 1st).

Here are the probabilities (in %) -generated over 10.000 simulations- with all match-results based on NT prediction formula's for goals scored in a match depending on elo win expectancy.

The group results with teams ordered by average group position:

group A	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Iran	54,71	32,52	10,16	2,10	0,42	0,09
Korea Republic	36,62	41,76	16,57	3,98	0,91	0,16
Iraq	7,30	18,81	42,38	20,73	8,37	2,41
United Arab Emirates	0,92	4,44	16,87	34,50	27,57	15,70
Syria	0,41	1,96	10,46	26,24	36,05	24,88
Lebanon	0,04	0,51	3,56	12,45	26,68	56,76

group B	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Japan	50,58	30,99	12,32	4,38	1,45	0,28
Australia	37,27	37,96	16,04	5,81	2,29	0,63
Saudi Arabia	8,49	17,65	33,90	20,63	12,82	6,51
China PR	1,71	5,65	15,36	27,53	27,72	22,03
Oman	1,64	5,78	15,88	26,15	28,26	22,29
Vietnam	0,31	1,97	6,50	15,50	27,46	48,26

To qualify for the 5th place play-off and to win it. In square brackets to win it when qualified for this play-off:

team	qualify	win
Iraq	42,38	31,66	[74,71]
Saudi Arabia	33,90	9,15	[26,99]
United Arab Emirates	16,87	10,44	[61,89]
Korea Republic	16,57	13,99	[84,43]
Australia	16,04	6,70	[41,77]
Oman	15,88	2,96	[18,64]
China PR	15,36	2,99	[19,47]
Japan	12,32	5,39	[43,75]
Syria	10,46	5,48	[52,39]
Iran	10,16	8,87	[87,30]
Vietnam	6,50	0,83	[12,77]
Lebanon	3,56	1,54	[43,26]

To qualify for the World Cup as number one or two in the group (simulation of the interconfederational play-offs is not possible as the pairings are not drawn yet):

 

team	WC
Iran	87,23
Japan	81,57
Korea Republic	78,38
Australia	75,23
Saudi Arabia	26,14
Iraq	26,11
Oman	7,42
China PR	7,36
United Arab Emirates	5,36
Syria	2,37
Vietnam	2,28
Lebanon	0,55

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