The fact Syria with all the reported problems in the country, including an ongoing civil war since 2011, have an International Football team playing at all let alone possibly qualify for the 2022 World Cup is truly amazing.
They are currently top of the AFC FIFA World Cup qualifying Group A with five wins in five games played. They have not played a 'home' game since the outbreak of war with their last being in December 2010 against Iraq at the Al-Abbasiyyin stadium in Damascus.
The remaining matches in Round Two were scheduled to be played in March and June but due to Covid were rescheduled for October and November which has again been put back to 2021 and a date to be arranged.
Round Three sees twelve teams (eight group winners and two best runners up) divided into two groups of six with the top two qualifying for the World Cup 2022. There is a fourth round which sees the two third placed teams play home and away over two legs with the winner advancing to the inter-confederation play-offs.
They are currently coached by Tunisian Nabil Maâloul who only took over in March - He has previously managed Kuwait and his home country.
They have never qualified for the World Cup with the nearest they have got coming in in the qualifiers for the 2018 tournament where they advanced to the fourth round stage but were knocked out by Australia over two legs - The drew 1-1 in the 'home' leg in Malaysia with a narrow 2-1 defeat in Australia in front of 42,136 fans.
2022 could be a very historic and memorable year for football fans in the country which has a population of over 20,000,000 people - there is of course many games to be played but could we see The Qasioun Eagles stepping out at the World Cup in Qatar?
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