The 2021 FIFA Arab Cup[1] (Arabic: كأس العرب 2021) is scheduled to be the 10th edition of the Arab world's[a] national team football tournament;[2][3] it will be the first edition with the FIFA Arab Cup branding.[4] It is scheduled to take place between 30 November and 18 December in Qatar, as a prelude to the 2022 FIFA World Cup which will also be held in Qatar.[3]
The tournament phase will involve 16 teams, of which seven came through the qualifying round; all 23 teams competing are under the auspices of either the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) or the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The 32 finals matches will be played in six venues, which will also be used for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.[5]
Teams
Teams qualified for Arab Cup without qualifying round
Teams qualified for Arab Cup after qualifying round
Teams failed to qualify for Arab Cup after qualifying round
Countries were not UAFA members
Of the 23 participating teams,[6] the top nine teams based on the April 2021 FIFA ranking directly qualified to the group stage, while the remaining 14 teams played seven single-leg matches, with seven teams going through to the group stage.[7] In the group stage, there will be four groups of four teams in a round-robin format, with the top two teams from each group qualifying to the knockout stage,[1] which will consist of quarter-finals, semi-finals, a play-off for third place, and the final.[8]
The 14 teams in the qualifiers were paired based on their April 2021 FIFA ranking:[8] the highest-ranked team in the qualifiers, Oman, played against the lowest-ranked team, Somalia.[9]Lebanon, the second-highest ranked team, played against Djibouti, the second-lowest ranked team, and so on.[9] The teams that won qualification matches 1, 2 and 3 occupied positions 2, 3 and 4 in pot 3, and the remaining teams were placed in pot 4 in order.[8]
The sixteen teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The draw started with pot 1 and completed with pot 4, from where a team was drawn and assigned to the first available group in the position of their pot (i.e. position 1 for pot 1). The hosts Qatar were automatically seeded into pot 1 and assigned to position A1, while the remaining automatically qualified teams were seeded into their respective pots based on the FIFA World Rankings of April 2021 (shown in parentheses below). Syria, the lowest-ranked team that automatically qualified, were joined in pot 3 by the winners of qualification matches 1 to 3, while pot 4 contained the winners of qualification matches 4 to 7. Algeria, as the winners of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, were assigned to position D1.[8]
^South Sudan, which is not part of the Arab world, also participated in the qualifying stage.
^The third qualification match was awarded to Jordan due to a forfeit from South Sudan as multiple players and staff had positive COVID-19 test results upon their arrival in Qatar.[10]
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Sudan
Somalia
South Sudan
Yemen
Djibouti
Comoros
Kuwait
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Qatar (H)
Iraq
Tunisia
United Arab Emirates
Syria
Morocco A'
Saudi Arabia
Algeria A'
Egypt