The Continental Futsal Championship, which was initially supposed to be held in May of 2021, will take place from 25 to 30 July in Bangkok, Thailand.
This is the latest news shared by Mohamed Fairoze Muhiseen. This invitational tournament has the FIFA Futsal World Cup in focus and the tournament will be used by the national teams to get in form for the big tournament.
Therefore, a number of teams that will participate in the Continental Futsal Championship are qualified for the Futsal World Cup.
A strong tournament line-up
Arguably the biggest name in the tournament should be Iran. And although Iran received its invitation, as reported by Mehr News Agency, and it does appear in the latest participants' graphic, it still hasn't been officially confirmed that the Asian giants will take part.
In fact, from the document attached in the article, it is visible that a number of teams that were initially invited are not on the latest graphic, but that is most likely due to Covid restrictions and tournament postponements.
Furthermore, yesterday's news bulletin from fut5al.ir about Iran's preparation cycle for the FIFA Futsal World Cup does not mention the tournament in Thailand.
But we can hope that the latest news is true and that Iran will give a little something more to the already highly competitive mix of teams in this tournament.
The Futsal World Cup hosts Lithuania are among the participating teams and this should be fantastic preparation for the Baltic team to experience the quality level of the Cup they're about to host.
After hosts - another host! This time the Continental Futsal Championship hosts - Thailand. This will be a great test for Thailand as they will face a strong group with Portugal, Morocco, and the Solomon Islands in the World Cup. Thailand received a berth for the Futsal World Cup after defeating Iraq in the playoffs.
Egypt, as one of the African futsal representatives in the World Cup, is coming in strong after playing in the final of the Arab Futsal Cup earlier this year against Morocco.
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Uzbekistan is one of the teams that qualified for the World Cup from Asia through AFC's decision. In the World Cup they were drawn in the same group with Russia, CONCACAF semifinalists Guatemala, and - Egypt. It will be interesting to see if the draw will make them square off before their duel in Lithuania later this year.
And the remaining three teams will not participate in this year's Futsal World Cup, but they are all good teams. Tajikistan is arguably among the top 10 teams in Asia. Mozambique had a bad run in the last edition of the Africa Futsal Cup of Nations, but they are a traditional futsal team with some earlier success in the competition.
And finally, Kosovo, who just recently started their futsal journey, but who have qualified to the UEFA's Main Qualifying Group Stage in World Cup qualifiers and recorded a victory in a competitive group. Unlucky for them, a few months later Kosovo could not qualify for the Main qualifying round for the UEFA Futsal Euro in 2022.
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Video Support also to be tested at The Continental Futsal Championship?
The news bulletin from satuina.com reports that the hosts in Thailand are ready to implement Video Support (commonly known as VAR) in the Continental Futsal Championship.
Adisak Benjasiriwan, Vice President of FAT and Chair of the FAT Futsal and Beach Football Committee mentioned that everybody should get acquainted with the technology before the Futsal World Cup and that this tournament can be a good testing ground.
Official confirmation about this is still necessary, but the idea is sound and logical.
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