In the afternoon of October 6, the World Federation of Association Football (FIFA) announced the world ranking of the men's soccer teams (also known as men's national teams) of its member associations for the new season. The Brazilian team sits at the top of the list. However, our team's world ranking slipped one place to 79th from 78th in the previous edition. Nonetheless, our team is still ranked 11th in our Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rankings. If this ranking remains unchanged, our team will undoubtedly participate in the 2023 AFC Asian Cup group draw as the second tier.
During the FIFA Matchday Cycle from September 18 to 27, men's soccer teams (national teams) from a wide range of member associations around the world participated in a variety of international tournaments. The new World Ranking List of National Teams, released on October 6, was updated based on the performance of the teams in matches during the current cycle. Compared with the previous ranking, only Italy and Spain have moved up and down respectively among the top 10 teams in the current ranking list, while the rest of the teams remain unchanged.
Among the Asian teams, Iran remains in first place, followed by Japan, South Korea, Australia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These six teams are also the ones representing Asia in the Qatar World Cup proper. Our team did not participate in any tournaments during this cycle, but due to the mixed results of other teams in the tournament, our team's world ranking dropped to 79th from 78th in the previous edition. Nonetheless, due to the high points scored by Jordan and Bahrain, our team remained at 11th place in the Asian rankings.
As planned, the Asian Football Confederation will announce the venue for the new Asian Cup on the 17th of this month. If the tournament is scheduled to be held in South Korea, the probability is that the tournament will be held in June or July of the following year. As a rule, the Asian Football Confederation usually arranges the group draw about six months before the opening of the tournament. Therefore, the draw will most likely take place at the end of this year, after the World Cup in Qatar. The year-end rankings of the WFC member associations' teams will be announced on December 22nd. As things stand, with the exception of the top six teams competing in the Qatar World Cup proper, it is unlikely that the teams representing the other member associations of the Asian Football Confederation (national teams) will play warm-up matches during the World Cup, and therefore their ranking points are unlikely to change. This suggests that our team is likely to remain 11th in Asia in the year-end rankings and thus participate in the Asian Cup draw as a second-tier team.
