The Asian section of the

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA FIFA#Structure, confederations to decide 31 of the 32 teams which would play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with Russia national football team, Rus ...

acted as qualifiers for the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

, held in Russia, for national teams which were members of the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC). 4.5 slots (four direct slots and one inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament were available for AFC teams. On 16 April 2014, the AFC Executive Committee approved a proposal to merge the preliminary qualification rounds of the FIFA World Cup and the

AFC Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second-oldest c ...

, which expanded to 24 teams starting in

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. Therefore, the first two rounds of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers also acted as qualifiers for the

2019 AFC Asian Cup The 2019 AFC Asian Cup (or commonly called the Asian Cup 2019) was the 17th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, the quadrennial international association football, football championship of Asia organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) ...

in the

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Format

The qualification structure was as follows: *First round: 12 teams (ranked 35–46) played home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round. *Second round: 40 teams (ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) were divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up advanced to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification. *Third round: 12 teams (an increase from ten for

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

) which had advanced from the second round were divided into two groups of six teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two teams of each group qualified for the

, and the two third-placed teams advanced to the fourth round. *Fourth round: Two third-placed teams of each group from the third round played home-and-away over two legs. The winners advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Entrants

The 46 FIFA-affiliated nations from the AFC entered qualification. In order to determine which nations would compete in the first round and which nations would receive a bye through to the second round, the

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their gam ...

of January 2015 were used (shown in parentheses), as those were the latest published rankings prior to the first round draw. The FIFA Rankings of January 2015 were also used for seeding of the first round draw; however, for seeding in the second round and third round draws, the most recent FIFA Rankings prior to those draws were used. This was the first effective participation of

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

, the country registered for the qualifications of 2010 but withdrew without playing a game (initially drawn against Kuwait in the first round).

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows.

First round

The draw for the first round was held on 10 February 2015, 15:30 MST ( UTC+8), at the AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 14 April 2015, at 17:00 MST ( UTC+8), at the JW Marriott Hotel in

Summary

Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Ranking of runner-up teams

To determine the four best runner-up teams, the following criteria were used: # Points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss) #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

# Goals scored # Fair play points # Drawing of lots As a result of Indonesia being disqualified due to FIFA suspension, Group F contained only four teams compared to five teams in all other groups. Therefore, the results against the fifth-placed team were not counted when determining the ranking of the runner-up teams.

Third round

The third round consisted of two groups of six teams. The first two teams in each group qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The two third-placed teams proceeded to the fourth round. The draw for the third round was held on 12 April 2016, at 16:30 MST ( UTC+8), at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in

Groups

Group A

Group B

Fourth round

The two third-placed teams in each group from the third round played against each other home-and-away over two legs to determine which team advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs. The order of legs was announced during the draw for the third round. Syria played their home match, as with all their home matches in the third round, in Malaysia due to the war time condition in Syria.

Inter-confederation play-offs

The draw for the inter-confederation play-offs was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK ( UTC+3), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. The fifth-placed team from AFC was drawn against the fourth-placed team from CONCACAF, with the AFC team hosting the second leg.

Qualified teams

The following five teams from AFC qualified for the final tournament. :

¹ ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

² Australia qualified as a member of the OFC in 1974 and 2006 (qualifying took place until 2005 and they left the OFC and joined the AFC in 2006).

Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round: * First round * Second round *

Third round Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

* Fourth round

Format

Entrants

Schedule

First round

Second round

Summary

Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Ranking of runner-up teams

Third round

Groups

Group A

Group B

Fourth round

Inter-confederation play-offs

Qualified teams

Top goalscorers

Notes

See also

References

External links