Mapped: The 32 Teams Playing in the 2022 FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup is one of the most-watched sporting events in the world—in 2018, nearly 3.6 billion people tuned in to watch the tournament.

Starting on November 20th, that excitement will return as 32 teams from around the world will compete in the 22nd FIFA World Cup Championship in Qatar.

This graphic by Athul Alexander shows the teams that will be playing against one another this year, and their latest pre-tournament FIFA rankings.

The Ranks of the 32 Qualifying Teams

The FIFA World Ranking is used to compare the 211 teams that are part of the FIFA association. They attempt to measure the progression and current ability of the each national football team.

The ranking is determined using a number of different metrics, including the number of games a team has won and how “important” those results were, such as in major tournaments or against strong opponents.

But high-ranking teams don’t qualify for the World Cup directly. Instead, ranks are used for seeding in regional qualifying tournaments, as each region (also known as a “confederation”) has a select number of slots.

This means that every World Cup, many lower-ranked teams end up qualifying for the event over higher-ranked teams. For 2022, the biggest example of this is Italy’s national team (ranked #6), which failed to qualify.

Here’s a look at the World Ranking of the 32 qualifying teams, as of Oct 6, 2022:

Country	FIFA Rank	Total Points
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