The third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia ended on June 11. The teams that directly qualified for the final round are Iran, Japan, Australia, Jordan, South Korea and Uzbekistan.
FIFA's expansion of the tournament from 32 to 48 teams will give Asia 8 direct tickets. The remaining two spots are determined through the 4th qualifying round.
In Group B, after South Korea and Jordan confirmed their tickets to the World Cup, all attention was on the race in the middle of the group. In the final match, Oman drew 1-1 with Palestine with a goal in injury time to continue. They, along with Iraq, will continue to compete for a place in the finals.
In Group A, the UAE - the third-placed team with 15 points, along with Qatar (13 points) advanced quite easily. In Group C, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are the two teams that qualified for the 4th qualifying round.
With 12 points after 10 matches, Indonesia has set a record for a Southeast Asian team in the 3rd qualifying round of the World Cup.
With a squad enhanced by quality naturalized players, the team from the archipelago has great ambitions to attend the biggest football festival on the planet for the first time. But this will be a very long and arduous journey.
According to the format, the 6 teams in the 4th qualifying round will be divided into 2 groups, competing in a round-robin to calculate points at a centralized location. The top team in each group will travel to the US, Mexico and Canada.
The two second-placed teams will continue to play two home and away matches to determine the Asian representative team for the intercontinental play-off round, competing for the final ticket to the final round.
List of teams participating in the 4th qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup: UAE, Qatar, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia.
