The South American section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification acted as qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar, for national teams which were members of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL). A total of 4.5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament were available for CONMEBOL teams.
The qualification process began on 8 October 2020 and ended on 29 March 2022. Uruguay's Luis Suárez scored the first goal of the round-robin. This was the third time Suárez had opened scoring in the group (after 2010 and 2014), as well as the fourth consecutive time a Uruguayan player had done so (Martín Cáceres scored the first goal of the 2018 process).
Format On 24 January 2019, the CONMEBOL Council decided to maintain the same qualification structure used for the previous six tournaments. The ten teams play in a league of home-and-away round-robin matches.
The fixtures were determined by a draw which was held on 17 December 2019, 10:00 PYST (UTC−3), at the Bourbon Asunción Convention Hotel in Luque, Paraguay.
Originally, Brazil and Argentina were both to be drawn into either position 4 or 5 in the draw, thus ensuring that no team has to play both of them on any double matchday. However, the decision was later reversed on 16 November 2019 by the CONMEBOL Council, making the draw completely open.
The CONMEBOL Council approved the use of the video assistant referee system for the qualifiers.
Entrants All 10 national teams from CONMEBOL entered qualification.
Note: Bolded teams qualified for the World Cup. Peru advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.
Drawposition Team September 2020FIFA World Rankings 1 6 2 10 3 22 4 3 5 25 6 75 7 40 8 9 9 17 10 64
Schedule The qualifying matches are played on dates that fall within the FIFA International Match Calendar. There are a total of 18 matchdays. Originally eight matchdays would be in 2020 and ten would be in 2021.
On 12 March 2020, FIFA announced that matches on matchdays 1–2 due to take place in March 2020 were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the new dates to be confirmed.
On 25 June 2020, FIFA announced that the inter-confederation play-offs, originally scheduled to be played in March 2022, were moved to June 2022.
On 10 July 2020, FIFA announced that the CONMEBOL qualifiers in September 2020 were postponed, with the qualifiers starting in October 2020. CONMEBOL also requested FIFA to include a replacement international window in January 2022 in order to complete the qualifiers in March 2022. The proposal was approved by FIFA on 18 August 2020. On 6 March 2021, FIFA announced that the March 2021 matches (matchdays 5 and 6) were postponed due to travel and quarantine restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These matches were rescheduled to be played in September and October 2021 after FIFA accepted the CONMEBOL's request to allow triple matchdays in both September and October international windows. Matchday 5 was played between matchdays 11 and 12, while matchday 6 was played between matchdays 9 and 10.
MatchdayDate(s)MatchesRevisedPrevious dateOriginalMatchday 18–9 October 2020 rowspan="7" 26 March 20201 v 9, 2 v 5, 4 v 6, 7 v 3, 8 v 10Matchday 213 October 2020 31 March 20203 v 4, 5 v 7, 6 v 8, 9 v 2, 10 v 1Matchday 312–13 November 2020 3 September 20202 v 1, 4 v 5, 6 v 10, 8 v 7, 9 v 3Matchday 417 November 2020 8 September 20201 v 4, 3 v 8, 5 v 9, 7 v 6, 10 v 2Matchday 73–4 June 2021 12 November 20201 v 7, 3 v 2, 4 v 10, 6 v 5, 8 v 9Matchday 88 June 2021 17 November 20202 v 8, 5 v 1, 7 v 4, 9 v 6, 10 v 3Matchday 92 September 2021 25 March 20213 v 1, 5 v 8, 6 v 2, 9 v 4, 10 v 7Matchday 65 September 2021 30 March 2021 13 October 20201 v 6, 3 v 5, 4 v 8, 7 v 2, 10 v 9Matchday 109 September 2021 7 September 2021 30 March 20211 v 10, 2 v 9, 4 v 3, 7 v 5, 8 v 6Matchday 117 October 2021 3 June 20211 v 2, 3 v 9, 5 v 4, 7 v 8, 10 v 6Matchday 510 October 2021 25–26 March 2021 8 October 20202 v 4, 5 v 10, 6 v 3, 8 v 1, 9 v 7Matchday 1214 October 2021 12 October 2021 8 June 20212 v 10, 4 v 1, 6 v 7, 8 v 3, 9 v 5Matchday 1311 November 2021 rowspan="7" 2 September 20211 v 8, 3 v 6, 4 v 2, 7 v 9, 10 v 5Matchday 1416 November 2021 7 September 20212 v 7, 5 v 3, 6 v 1, 8 v 4, 9 v 10Matchday 1527–28 January 2022 7 October 20212 v 3, 5 v 6, 7 v 1, 9 v 8, 10 v 4Matchday 161 February 2022 12 October 20211 v 5, 3 v 10, 4 v 7, 6 v 9, 8 v 2Matchday 1724–25 March 2022 11 November 20211 v 3, 2 v 6, 4 v 9, 7 v 10, 8 v 5Matchday 1829 March 2022 16 November 20213 v 7, 5 v 2, 6 v 4, 9 v 1, 10 v 8Replay from matchday 621 September 2022 4 v 8
Standings
Matches
Matchday 1
Matchday 2
Matchday 3
Matchday 4
Matchday 7
Matchday 8
Matchday 9
Matchday 6 Matchday pushed back in revised schedule and then cancelled.
Matchday 10
Matchday 11
Matchday 5 Matchday pushed back in revised schedule.
Matchday 12
Matchday 13
Matchday 14
Matchday 15
Matchday 16
Matchday 17
Matchday 18
Replay from matchday 6
Inter-confederation play-off
The inter-confederation play-offs was determined by a draw held on 26 November 2021. The fifth-placed team from CONMEBOL qualification was drawn against the AFC fourth round winners. The play-off was played as a single match in Qatar (host country of the World Cup) on 13 June 2022.
Qualified teams
The following four teams from CONMEBOL qualified for the final tournament. Team Qualified as Qualified onPrevious appearances in FIFA World Cup1 21 (1930, 1934, 1938, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018) 17 (1930, 1934, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018) 13 (1930, 1950, 1954, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1990, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2018) 3 (2002, 2006, 2014) 1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.
Goalscorers
Notes
References
External links
Qualifiers – South America Matches: Round-robin, FIFA.com