The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) held the draw for the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament for its continent in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).

The 18 national teams are divided into three groups of six teams. They will play in two rounds, and the top two teams from each group will directly qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

The teams that took the third and fourth places in the groups will continue to fight in the fourth round. They will be divided into two groups of three participants. The winners of these groups will also receive direct tickets to the 2026 World Cup.

The teams that finished second in the groups of the fourth round will play in the fifth round. The winner of this round will represent Asia in the intercontinental playoffs. There will also be two participants from CONCACAF and one each from Africa, Oceania and South America. These six national teams will compete for the last two tickets to the 2026 World Cup.

The third round:

Group A: Iran, Qatar, Uzbekistan, UAE, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea

Group B: Republic of Korea, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Kuwait

Group C: Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, China, Indonesia

The matches will be held on September 5 and 10, October 10 and 15, November 14 and 19, March 20 and 25, June 5 and 10.

The first two rounds of the World Cup selection were combined with the selection for the Asian Cup 2027. The 18 teams that took first and second places in the groups in the second round automatically qualified for the Asian Cup.

The national team of Turkmenistan, which participated in the selection, took third place in group "E" of the second round of qualification.

We add that the teams eliminated in the first and second rounds of the World Cup selection will compete for the remaining tickets to the Asian Cup 2027 in a separate qualification.