With Peru waiting: Groups and Fixture of Qatar 2022

It has been a week of definitions for the soccer planet. Especially for the thirty countries that will play the twelfth World Cup in history. The ceremony in Doha, Qatar, where Diego Armando Maradona, Gerd Müller and Paolo Rossi were honored, ended the suspense: the eight groups of the first round of Qatar 2022 are already known, beyond the fact that three places are still to be disputed — including Peru, fifth place in South America—.

Qatar tops Group A as hosts, and will have the difficult task of competing against three evenly matched opponents: Liverpool star Sadio Mané’s Senegal; the irregular Ecuador of Gonzalo Plata; and none other than the Netherlands, the mighty Netherlands returning to the World Cups after their failed bid for Russia 2018.

In Group B appears England, the runner-up of the last European Championship. They complete the list Iran, the first place in Asia; The United States, which also had the misfortune of missing the last World Cup and the play off European between Wales and the winner between Scotland and Ukraine.

Group C is led by the Argentina of Messi and company. There is also Saudi Arabia, as well as Mexico that went from less to more in the Concacaf Qualifiers, and Robert Lewandowski’s Poland that eliminated Sweden and, therefore, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Group D is almost a carbon copy of Russia 2018: there is France, the current world champion; a decimated Denmark without Christian Eriksen, its greatest figure in recent times; Tunisia, a regular country in this type of competition, and Peru, which will face the winner between Australia and the United Arab Emirates in June. If so, there would be three countries (France, Denmark and Peru) that would repeat the group in two World Cups in a row.

Group E is considered by the international press as the “group of death”: the always dangerous Spain, Germany and the weight of its history, Japan and its fast and vertical soccer and the winner between Costa Rica and New Zealand.

Group F is for another group that according to the experts is one of the most complicated. It is made up of: Belgium and its waste of talent that would deserve more titles in its history; Canada that, as happened to Peru in Russia 2018, will return to the World Cups after 36 years; Morocco and its supremacy on the African continent and Croatia, the last runner-up in the world.

Brazil is the favorite to win Group G. The rivals that accompany him are in a second order, but that does not give them an advantage. There we have three countries that usually surprise: Serbia, Switzerland and Cameroon.

And finally, in Group H they have been matched Portugal of Cristiano Ronaldo and his lieutenant Bruno Fernandes; Uruguay and the last bullets from ‘Pistolero’ Suárez, the enthusiasm of Ghana and the intensity of South Korea.