With more than 209 nations in FIFA’s global membership, there are a lot of different ways to qualify for the World Cup. Each confederation varies its qualification process to take into account continental size and membership, pedigree of member nations, and other cultural factors that play out on the football field.
Ultimately, the goal is to have 48 teams at the final tournament, a number that has doubled since the competition’s first staging in 1930. While the expansion has been widely embraced, there are some concerns about the quality of qualification. Top teams still feel the heat, but there is more room for error as the qualifying process progresses.
The first step is a round robin group stage, where nations are placed into groups of four or five and face each other twice over two legs. The winners of each group earn direct qualification to the World Cup. The second-place finishers are sorted into a mini-bracket and the winner earns passage to the intercontinental playoff.
For the 2026 cyle, the 46 members of Asia’s confederation competed in five rounds to earn one of eight direct spots at the final tournament. The continent also earned a spot in the intercontinental playoff, which was won by Saudi Arabia.
The four lowest-ranked runners-up in this round — American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga — entered a one-legged knockout format that was held in October and November of 2024. The winners of each match advanced to the second-round of the interconfederation playoffs, which were played in March of 2026.