Futsal World Cup elite round draw
Thursday, June 8, 2023
Article summary
The elite round draw set five groups of four teams to be played, in a home and away format, by 20 December.
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The FIFA Futsal World Cup elite round draw has set five groups of four team to be played, in a home and away format, by 20 December.
Elite round draw
Group A: Kazakhstan, Romania, Azerbaijan, Netherlands
Group B: Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, Belgium
Group C: Croatia, Slovakia, France, Germany
Group D: Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Czechia
Group E: Portugal (holders), Georgia, Armenia, Finland
The five elite round group winners qualify directly for the 2024 finals in Uzbekistan from 14 September to 6 October.
The four best runners-up enter the elite round play-offs, drawn on 25 January and played between 8 and 17 April, for the remaining two European spots.
Match dates
11–20 September
2–11 October
11–20 December
Team facts
- Armenia and Germany began in the preliminary round.
- Portugal won the World Cup in 2021 in Lithuania as well as the last two Futsal EUROs and the first Futsal Finalissima in 2022; Spain were World Cup winners in 2000 and 2004.
- As well as Portugal and Spain, Czechia, Kazakhstan and Serbia also played at the 2021 World Cup.
- Other teams that have played in previous World Cups: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine.
How the draw worked
The contenders are the 16 teams directly progressing from the main round groups and the four main round play-off winners (Belgium, Czechia, Germany and the Netherlands). They were split into four seeding pots, based on their rankings in the main round group phase followed by UEFA futsal national team coefficients.
The draw started with Pot 4 and the teams drawn assigned into position 4 of each group. The draw then continued with Pot 3, from where the teams drawn were assigned into position 3 of each group. Next was Pot 2, from where the teams drawn were assigned into position 2 of each group, and finally Pot 1 to fill position 1.
For each pot, the teams drawn were allocated in alphabetical order from Groups A to E.
