What is the World Cup?
Who will win the 2022 World Cup? Well this year the former champions such as Brazil, Germany, England, and defending champions France, all return to the competition with world class teams that will aspire to lift the World Cup trophy. These four teams dominated in their qualification groups, and thus climbed up the World Rankings. Excitingly, a number of countries that have never won the World Cup before are coming to the tournament with teams filled with top quality players, such as Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and any one of them could lift the trophy.
Whilst it is usually a given that the top footballing nations from around the world will play in the World Cup, this is not always the case. If you have not followed the qualifiers, then perhaps you will be surprised to hear that the four time World Cup winners Italy will not be in the 2022 World Cup.
So how do the World Cup qualifiers work? Five football federations organise the qualifiers across different continents. The UEFA is the football federation for the European nations, the CONMEBOL is for the South American nations, the CAF is for the African nations, the AFC is for the Asian nations, the CONCACAF is for the nations in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and the OFC is for the Oceanic nations.
Each federation has a number of berths proportional to the number of nations that play in the federation and where they rank in the World rankings. The UEFA has 13 berths, the CAF has 5 berths, the CONMEBOL and AFC have either 4 or 5 berths, the CONCACAF has either 3 or 4 berths, and the OFC has either 1 berth or none. The exact number of berths for the federations that have either 4 or 5, 3 or 4, and so on, all are determined through inter-federation qualifier playoffs.
In each federation, the teams are either drawn into groups or they played in one big group, and at the conclusion of the qualifiers, the World Cup finalists were determined.
The draw for the World Cup was held on April 1, in Doha, Qatar. The 32 entrants were placed into 4 pots, and then they were drawn into 8 groups of 4. The teams will play the group stage in a single robin round, against the 3 other teams in their groups. Once the group stage is finished, the top two teams will advance to the knockout stage. Here, the winners of each group face the runners up of the next group. For example, the winner of Group A will face the runners up of Group B, and the winners of Group B will face the runners up of Group A. Groups C and D, E and F, and G and H are paired in the same structure.
The knockout stage begins with the round of the last 16, and the teams play in a single match elimination round. If the match ends in a draw after regular time, the teams have to play two 30-minute halves of extra time, and then if the game is still a draw, the match goes into a penalty shootout.
The round of the last 16 is followed by the quarterfinals, semi-finals, third place playoffs and then the 2022 World Cup final. Once the knockout stage begins, the paths of each team are determined, and this is when the hype within all nations increases exponentially. You can start predicting the fixtures at our sportsbook and see who your nation will face in each of the following rounds, if they win, and then who they may face in the finals.
A Bettor’s Paradise
Should you want to bet on the World Cup, you will find that mr.play has all your betting needs covered. There is a huge selection of markets at your disposal for each match in the World Cup. You can bet on all the nations and on individual players, with a huge selection of standard bets, combo bets, game props and of course live bets, where you will be able to pick your wagers during the course of a game.
There are hundreds of betting markets for every single game in the tournament, ranging from the standard picks such as match bets, Asian handicaps, total goals, correct score, and so on, all the way to bets on how many goals a player will score, which half will be the highest scoring, which team will open the scoring, and many more fantastic options that you can make your predictions with.
Should you prefer to make in game bets, then you will definitely not be disappointed. We have an equally large collection of live bets that are offered with odds that update in real time. There are also many special live bets that pop up during a game. These will vary depending on the time in the game, the score, which team is dominating at that time, and many more factors. These bets will appear frequently during a game and if you are lucky then you can single out some fantastic selections that come at some mouth-watering odds.
Here in the Magazine, you will find articles to help you make the most of all of these betting markets. We publish new articles all of the time, so be sure to visit us regularly and catch up with all the latest World Cup 2022 news.
