2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group A
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification UEFA Group A was one of the ten UEFA groups in the World Cup qualification tournament to decide which teams would qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals tournament in Qatar.[1] Group A consisted of five teams: Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Serbia.[2] The teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format.[3]
The group winners, Serbia, qualified directly for the World Cup finals, while the runners-up, Portugal, advanced to the second round (play-offs).
Qatar were partnered with the five-team group that does not contain a UEFA Nations League finalist, Group A, which enabled the 2022 FIFA World Cup hosts to play centralized friendlies against these countries on their "spare" match dates. However, these friendlies did not count in the qualifying group standings. Also, Qatar played their "home" matches in Europe in order to allow short travel times for their opponents.[4][5][6]