Here’s Your Guide to the Final World Cup Matches, Football Fans

Here’s Your Guide to the Final World Cup Matches, Football Fans

The 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup is picking up steam, and there is a lot of interest building around the biggest football event on Earth – even if our Socceroos have come to the end of their journey. If you’d like to keep up to date on what’s happening with the 2022 World Cup and all the biggest games, here’s your explainer guide.

Where is the 2022 World Cup?

World Cup schedule socceroos games
Socceroos. (Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images)

The 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup will be held in Qatar.

The event, and its 64 games, will be played out across eight different stadiums: Al Bayt Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium, Al Thumama Stadium, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Lusail Stadium, Stadium 974, Education City Stadium and Al Janoub Stadium.

Why is there controversy around Qatar hosting the World Cup?

The choice by FIFA to have Qatar host the 2022 Men’s World Cup has been met with criticism and concern since its announcement. Most recently, however, we’ve seen conversations arise about the treatment of migrant workers and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in Qatar due to the Socceroos and Football Australia making a public statement about these issues.

In late October, the Socceroos released a video touching on the importance of values like “respect, dignity, trust and courage”. It’s a powerful video speaking to the need for better and more consistent conditions for migrant workers in Qatar and voicing support for LGBTQ+ communities.

You can watch it below.

The video was released alongside a statement from Football Australia in collaboration with Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) calling for more to be done. You can read that statement in full here.

Which teams are competing?

As you likely already know, qualifying teams are determined during the first stage of the competition. Teams are set in groups according to location, and these groups play off until we land on our final lineup.

In order to progress to the next stage, teams need to emerge as winners of their group or one of the four best runners-up in the comp. Australia competed in the Asia World Cup qualifiers.

You can read a full breakdown of the qualifiers subsections here.

The competing groups are broken up as follows:

FIFA World Cup Group A

  • Qatar
  • Ecuador
  • Senegal
  • Netherlands

FIFA World Cup Group B

  • England
  • IR Iran
  • USA
  • Wales

FIFA World Cup Group C

  • Argentina
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Mexico
  • Poland

FIFA World Cup Group D

  • France
  • Denmark
  • Tunisia
  • Australia

FIFA World Cup Group E

  • Spain
  • Germany
  • Japan
  • Costa Rica

FIFA World Cup Group F

  • Belgium
  • Canada
  • Morocco
  • Croatia

FIFA World Cup Group G

  • Brazil
  • Serbia
  • Switzerland
  • Cameroon

FIFA World Cup Group H

  • Portugal
  • Ghana
  • Uruguay
  • Korea Republic

Men’s FIFA World Cup dates

Socceroos (Photo by Mohamed Farag/Getty Images)

The event is slated to run from November 21 to December 18, 2022.

The Opening Ceremony and first game of the World Cup (Group A – Qatar v Ecuador) kicked off on November 21, 2:00 am AEDT.

The knockout phase will begin with the Round of 16 from December 3-6.

The quarter-finals will be played on December 9 and 10, and the semi-finals are slated for December 13 and 14. And the Grand Final for 2022 will be played on December 18, with the play-off for third place set for December 17.

How to watch the Men’s World Cup in Australia

FIFA World Cup 2022
2022 schedule. (Photo by David Ramos – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

When it comes to tuning into the FIFA World Cup in 2022, the easiest place to do that will be through SBS, which will be airing games live and free.

SBS’ schedule for the FIFA Men’s World Cup

SBS and SBS On Demand will broadcast all 64 matches, and eight live matches will also be aired on SBS VICELAND.

Daily SBS schedule:

Here’s a general breakdown of how you can expect SBS coverage to go during the event.

  • 2:00 or 2:30 am AEDT: First game of the day
  • 5:00 or 5:30 am AEDT: Second game
  • 5:30 pm AEDT: World Cup Daily Show
  • 6:00 pm AEDT: FIFA Preview Show
  • 8:00 or 8:30 pm AEDT: Third game
  • 11:00 or 11:30 pm AEDT: Fourth game

Quarter-final game times

We’re into the quarter-finals (already)! Here are the top eight teams competing in the comp and the Australian game times for the upcoming matches. Set your alarms, folks. We’re in for a few more early mornings.

Saturday, December 10

  • 1:25 am (kick-off at 2:00) AEDT: Croatia v Brazil 
  • 5:25 am (kick-off at 6:00) AEDT: Netherlands v Argentina

Saturday, December 11

  • 1:25 am (kick-off at 2:00) AEDT: Morocco v Portugal
  • 5:25 am (kick-off at 6:00) AEDT: England v France

World Cup semi-final game times

  • Wednesday, December 14 at 6:00 am AEDT: Argentina v Croatia
  • Thursday, December 15 at 6:00 am AEDT: Morocco v France

World Cup Grand Final game time

  • Monday, December 19 at 6:00 am AEDT: TBD v TBD

Socceroos results

FIFA World Cup 2022
Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

The World Cup journey for our Socceroos has unfortunately come to a close (after an epic performance, we should point out). If you’re wondering what games they played during the comp and when, here is a quick run down.

  • Wednesday, November 23, 4:55 am AEDT: France v Australia (4-1, France)
  • Saturday, November 26, 7:25 pm AEDT: Tunisia v Australia (1-0, Australia)
  • Thursday, December 1, 12:55 am AEDT: Australia v Denmark (1-0, Australia)
  • Sunday, December 4, 5:25 am AEDT: Argentina v Australia (2-1, Argentina)

The women’s comp

women's world cup 2023
Australian Matildas vs Brazil (Photo by Steve Christo – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

If you’re wondering about the Women’s World Cup, we have some details for you in that space, too.

In major sporting news for Australia and New Zealand, it’s been confirmed that our nations will be the homes of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.

The first match will kick off at Auckland’s Eden Park on July 20, 2023, and the comp will close at Sydney’s Stadium Australia. If you’re wondering where you can watch that event, Optus Sport will stream all 64 Women’s matches live. You can read all about that event here.

This article has been updated with additional details on game times since its original publish date.


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