Booters will learn their opponents today
The Bangladesh national football team will learn their fate today as to which teams they would get to play over the next one year in their second-round joint qualifiers for the Qatar 2022 World Cup and China 2023 Asian Cup.
The draw for the top 40 nations of Asia will be held today at the Malaysia headquarters of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) at 3:00pm Bangladesh time.
The 40 teams have been pitted in five pots depending upon the June, 2019 FIFA Ranking, with Bangladesh in Pot 5 due to their low ranking. The draw will see eight groups, with each group featuring five teams and one team picked from each pot.
The eight champion teams and four best runners-up teams will go into the third round of World Cup qualifying while sealing their Asian Cup berth right away.
The remaining 28 teams will either go to the third round of Asian Cup qualifiers or go through play-offs to get into the third round depending on the position in the group.
The Bangladesh team will get to play eight matches against four teams from the four other pots, on home and away basis, with the matches scheduled to be held between September 5, 2019 and June 9, 2020.
Bangladesh beat Laos 1-0 on aggregate in the first round of the qualifiers last month to become one of the six teams to join the 34 top teams for the second round of the qualifiers, which serves as a joint platform for both the World Cup and the Asian Cup.
In the last edition of these qualifiers, Bangladesh started from the second round of qualifiers due to their relatively better ranking, and played eight matches in second round of qualifying before playing four more matches – two double-legged playoffs. The second of those two playoffs was against Bhutan where a defeat for the men in red and green ended their qualification campaign.
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