2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)
Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for Asia. 44 Asian teams are affiliated with FIFA, but Cambodia, Philippines, Bhutan and Brunei decided not to take part, and Myanmar was banned from the competition (for refusing to play a qualifier in Iran during 2002 qualifying), so a total of 39 teams took part, competing for 4.5 places in the World Cup. Format The qualification was composed of three rounds. Only the 14 last ranked teams according to FIFA took part in the Preliminary Round, where they were paired 2-by-2 and played home-and-away knock-out matches. The 7 winners joined the other 25 teams in the second round, where those 32 teams were divided in 8 groups of four teams each. The teams in each group would play against each other home-and-away, and the team with most points in each group would advance to the Third Round. In the third round, the 8 remaining teams were divided in two groups of 4 teams each, that would again play against each other in a home-and-away basis. The two teams with most points in each group would qualify to the World Cup. The two third placed