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Abu Dhabi on November 19
The curtain will be lifted tomorrow, “Sunday”, for the activities of the 22nd edition of the FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted by Qatar from November 20 to December 18.
The Qatari team launches the kick-off in this version after the official opening ceremony, through its upcoming confrontation with the Ecuadorean team in the opening match of the tournament at Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, the second stadium in the tournament in terms of mass capacity, with a capacity of about 60,000 fans.
The match comes in the opening matches of the first group matches in the first round of the tournament, which also includes the Netherlands and Senegal, who will meet on Monday.
With the kick-off, the World Cup will witness a new record, as a new team will join the list of teams that participated in the World Cup throughout its history, given that it is the first participation of the Qatari team in the tournament.
Thus, the number of participating teams throughout the history of the World Cup will increase to 80 teams.
Since the start of the tournament in 1930 in Uruguay, no new version of the increase in the number of teams participating in the history of the tournament has been with at least one team, and the last to join the list before the current tournament were Iceland and Panama through the 2018 version in Russia.
This version is characterized by a historical nature, being the first ever in an Arab land and the Middle East, after the tournament toured most of the globe over nine decades since the launch of the first version in 1930 in Uruguay.
It will also be the last edition with the participation of only 32 teams, while the number will increase to 48 teams starting from the next edition, which will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2026.
The upcoming edition in Qatar will have an Arab character for the first time, as it will be held in the middle of the Arab region for the first time.
The tournament returns to the Asian continent through this edition, two decades after the continent hosted the World Cup for the first time through the 2002 edition in South Korea and Japan.
But the current edition, 2022, will be the first ever to be held in the European winter instead of its usual mid-year stay during June and July.
The 2022 World Cup will witness the participation of 7 of the 8 teams that have previously won the World Cup; Brazil (5 titles), Germany (4 titles), Argentina (two titles), Uruguay (two titles), France (two titles), Spain (one title) and England (one title) are participating.
Among the former champions of the World Cup, only the Italian team that won the title 4 previous times, as the team failed in the play-off of the European qualifications for the World Cup, is absent from this edition.
The European continent, as usual, has the lion’s share of the championship seats with 13 seats, compared to 5 seats for Africa, 4 seats for South America, and the same for CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean), while the Asian continent has 6 seats for the first time in history.
And the championship is devoid of the Oceanian Union teams after the failure of the New Zealand team in the international play-offs.
The tournament will witness the participation of 9 of the teams ranked in the top 10 in the current world classification issued by the International Federation of the Game (FIFA), where only the Italian team, ranked sixth in the classification, is absent.
The ranking of the teams in the FIFA ranking ranges between the lead that the Brazilian team holds, with a slight difference in front of its Belgian counterpart, and the 61st place occupied by the Ghanaian team.
Despite this, it is difficult to predict early on the identity of the team that will eventually succeed and reach the podium for the 22nd world title, in light of the strong nominations that any team has and the surprises witnessed in many copies of the past tournament.
Among the statistics that limit the possibility of predicting the identity of the winner or the strong expectations of the identity of the teams that can top their groups in the first round, is that since the issuance of the global ranking of teams by the International Federation of the Game (FIFA) in late 1992, no source for the classification at the beginning of the tournament has succeeded in crowning the title In fact, the coronation was sometimes awarded to a team outside the top 10 in the FIFA rankings.
Also, the last few editions witnessed surprises of the great caliber, victims of which were the big teams.
At the forefront of these surprises was the fall of the defending champion in 4 of the last 5 editions of the tournament in the first round (group stage) in the next edition to win the world title.
Therefore, extreme caution will be the slogan of the big teams that want to compete for the title and are strong candidates for it, such as the Brazilian team, ranked first in the world, and its French counterpart, the current holder of the title.
Despite the injuries suffered by many stars in the past period, and this version was deprived of more than one big player, such as the French N’Golo Kante, Paul Pogba and Senegalese Sadio Mane, the teams participating in this version are still filled with many stars of different nationalities.
The list is certainly headed by the legendary Argentine duo Lionel Messi and Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, who are participating in the World Cup for the fifth consecutive year.
The other teams are also full of stars in various positions, such as French striker Kylian Mbappe and his colleague Karim Benzema, Brazilians Neymar and Vinicius Junior, Spanish players Pedri and Jaffe, Dutch striker Memphis Depay, Argentine star Angel Di Maria, Polish striker Robert Lewandowski and Englishman Harry Kane, crowned top scorer for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and the German player Famous Thomas Muller and others.
With the huge convergence of distances between the eight stadiums hosting the matches, unlike in the 2014 editions in Brazil and 2018 in Russia, the opportunity will be more available for players to get a lot of rest away from the long distances of travel and movement between cities, which means saving their efforts to train and shine in the matches.
FIFA also approved the increase in the number of players
