Lebanon has qualified for the third round of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Qualifiers.
Team Lebanon finished as the fifth-best runner-up – the final position available for the best runners-up – after losing their final match to South Korea (2-1) on Sunday.
Lebanon had previously lost 3-2 against Turkmenistan on June 9, which threatened their chance to qualify for the third round.
Prior to that, the Cedars had generated good momentum in the qualifiers at the top of their group, their last win being against Sri Lanka (3-2) on June 5th.
This is the second time Lebanon has reached this round, the first being in the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup.
The Lebanese team is now advancing to the next round alongside 11 other teams: Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Australia, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Vietnam, China, and UAE.
The 12 teams will be divided into two groups of six for the upcoming round, where they will play home-and-away round-robin matches.
The two teams that end up at the top of each group will directly qualify for the 2022 World Cup.
The teams that come in third on each side will advance to the fourth round and compete for qualification to the global competition.
Notably, these qualifiers are also for the finals of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, which will be held in China two years from now.
The 2022 World Cup is set to take place in Qatar from November 21st to December 18th, 2022.
