Qatar beat United Arab Emirates to book their place at the 2026 World Cup | OneFootball

Qatar secured a spot in the 2026 World Cup this Tuesday with a 2-1 home victory over the United Arab Emirates in Group A of the Asian Qualifiers.

Boualem Khoukhi scored for Qatar at 49 minutes of the first half, and Pedro Miguel added another at 29 minutes of the second half, before Sultan Adil reduced the deficit for the visitors in stoppage time, at 53 minutes.

The small Gulf nation will participate in the World Cup for the second time after hosting the tournament in 2022.

Qatar thus joins Australia, South Korea, Iran, Japan, Jordan, and Uzbekistan as representatives of the Asian zone in next year's World Cup.

Twice champions of the Asian Cup (2019 and 2023), Qatar will seek to improve its performance compared to the previous World Cup. At home, the team had the worst campaign of a host in history, losing all three group stage matches (seven goals conceded and one scored).

The United Arab Emirates still have a chance to qualify. To do so, they will have to play a home-and-away playoff against Iraq before proceeding to an intercontinental playoff.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.