With the FIFA World Cup 2022 nearing its conclusion, Indian football fans are wondering if the Blue Tigers could possibly qualify for the next World Cup hosted in North America. Indians will be keenly eyeing the next World Cup as it will include 48 instead of 32 teams in the tournament. Similarly, the Indian team has been gradually improving over the last few years along with the growth of the Indian Super League, creating a slim chance for qualification.
The change in format creates 8.5 slots for Asian teams instead of 4.5 slots which was the norm until the ongoing World Cup in Qatar. India is currently ranked by FIFA 19th amongst the Asian nations and hence would not have to play in the first round of the Asian qualification and start from the Preliminary Round 2.
The games for Preliminary Round 2, in which 36 teams will be divided into 9 groups, will start in November 2023 and will continue till June 24, 2024, being separated by six matchdays. Here, the Indian team would need to take major steps and push to finish in one of the top two spots of their group.
The task still is humongous for the Blue Tigers as India is currently ranked 106 in the world, which is still away from the top 8 nations. Even when India had achieved their best ranking of 94, they were still far away from the continent's top 10. Similarly, India's record against Asia's top nations hasn’t been promising.
Since 2018, the best results against these teams have all been draws - 1-1 vs Oman last year, 1-1 vs Syria in 2019, and 0-0 vs China in 2018. Whereas the Blue Tigers have lost to lower-ranked teams like the Maldives, Tajikistan and North Korea. Similarly, the Indian team has drawn far too many times against the likes of Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Hence qualifying for the 2026 World Cup would still require a lot of effort.
