The Qatar Football Association announced that Ahmed Bin Ali World Cup Stadium will host the Qatari national team’s match against its Emirati counterpart on September 5, in the opening match of the third round of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The draw for the third round of the World Cup qualifiers placed the Qatari national team in Group One, alongside the national teams of Iran, Uzbekistan, the Emirates, Kyrgyzstan and North Korea.
The Qatari team, winner of the 2023 Asian Cup, will play the second round of the qualifiers on the 10th of the same month, as a guest against its North Korean counterpart, before returning to face its guest, the Kyrgyz national team, on the 10th of next October, then heading to the Iranian capital, Tehran, to face its Iranian counterpart on the 15th of the same month, to host the Uzbek national team in Doha on the 14th of next November, at the end of the first leg.
The Al-Adham team, led by Spanish coach Bartolome Marquez Lopez, will start the second leg against the host, the UAE, on November 19, before hosting its North Korean counterpart on March 20, 2025, then facing its Kyrgyz counterpart on the 25th of the same month, and returning to host the Iranian team on June 5, 2025, and concluding the third stage by meeting the Uzbek team in Tashkent on the 10th of the same month.
The 2023 Asian Cup winners have officially qualified for the third and decisive round of the World Cup qualifiers and have also booked their place in the continental finals to be hosted by Saudi Arabia in 2027, topping Group 1 with 16 points from five wins and a draw, against Afghanistan in Doha 8/1 in the first leg and 0/0 in the second leg in Saudi Arabia, against India away 3/0 and 2/1, and against Kuwait 3/0 and 2/1 in the first and second leg. The Kuwaiti team also qualified within the same group with 7 points.
The top two teams in each of the three groups will qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup, securing six of the eight direct places available to the Asian Football Confederation, while the teams that finish third and fourth (six teams) will move on to the Asian play-off, whose matches will be held in a single-round league system, with the first-place team in each group qualifying for the World Cup.
In contrast, the two teams that finish second in the Asian play-off will move on to a two-legged match to determine the team that qualifies for the global play-off.