2018 World Cup Qualifying Projections for AFC

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is made up of 46 members and has been allotted 4.5 spots (4 automatic, 1 spot by way of inter-confederation playoffs) for the World Cup in Russia. The qualifying tournament is broken into four rounds:

Round One: Played in March of 2015, the twelve teams ranked at the bottom of the FIFA rankings play in a two-leg match to determine who advances to the 2nd Round.

Round Two: Played from June 2015 to March 2016. Includes the six winners from Round 1 and the other 34 teams in the confederation. The teams are broken up into eight groups of five teams and they play in a home-and-away round-robin format. The winners of each group and the four best runner up teams move on to the 3rd Round.

Round Three: The twelve remaining teams are broken up into two groups of six teams. The top two teams in each group will qualify for World Cup Russia, while the 3rd place team in each group will move on to Round Four.

Round Four: A home-and-away pitting the two 3rd place finishers from Round 3. These games will be played on October 5th and October 10th, 2017. The winner will move on to the inter-confederation playoffs against the 4th place team from CONCACAF.

We simulated all of the games 5,000 times. For our individual game projections, see: World Cup Game Predictions. For all current rankings of all FIFA International Clubs, see: International Soccer Rankings.

For the current odds to advance for each team, see:
For our UEFA World Cup projections, see: UEFA World Cup Qualifying Projections.
For our CONCACAF World Cup projections, see: CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying Projections.
For our CONMEBOL World Cup projections, see: CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying Projections.
For our CAF World Cup projections, see: CAF World Cup Qualifying Projections.

Originally posted on 5/16/2017.

AFC World Cup Qualifying – Group A – Wins, Losses, Points

AFC World Cup Qualifying – Group B – Wins, Losses, Points

#All ten games have been played in the qualifying group.

AFC World Cup Qualifying- Probability to win Group, Advance, and Not Advance

*The odds to “Advance” above is the probability to advance by finishing either in the top 2 of the group or by way of the inter-confederation playoffs against the CONCACAF 4th place winner.