Booters to learn their fate today

The Bangladesh national football team will get to know their fate today regarding which team they would face in the preliminary joint qualification for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup as the draw for the first round will be held at the AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia today.

The draw will pit Bangladesh and the five other unseeded teams -- ranked 41st to 46th in Asia -- against the six seeded teams who are ranked 35th to 40th.

Bangladesh, currently ranked 41st, will get one of the six seeded teams -- Malaysia, Cambodia, Macau, Laos, Bhutan, Mongolia -- for double legged first round matches.

The first leg of the preliminary joint qualification (Round-1) will take place on June 6 with the return leg scheduled to kick off on June 11. The six winners will join Asia's top 34 teams in the group-based second round, which will commence in September.

If Bangladesh win the first round of qualifiers, they would be ensured of at least eight more matches in the second round of the qualifiers while a defeat would all but rob them of any more competitive football under the AFC/FIFA-competitions for the next four years.

The latest FIFA ranking, published on April 4, and the resultant ranking in AFC zone, have been considered to decide the seeding and non-seeding for the first round of the qualifying campaign.

Bangladesh were ranked 157th in FIFA (30th in AFC zone) when the draw for the 2018 World Cup and the 2019 Asian Cup was made in 2015, which allowed them to avoid the first round, placing them directly in the second round of qualifiers.