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Published on August 4, 2007

The Thai team, who are ranked in 19th place, have to start their campaign in the two-leg first round, in which teams ranked 6-24 will be pitted against the opponents ranked 25-43. The draw will be conducted in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. The first match of the tie will be held on October 2, with the second on October 28.

Thailand will play 16 matches at least, or 22 maximum, depending on whether they book a ticket via play-offs.

Forty-three teams have been seeded on the base of results from the previous World Cup finals in Germany and earlier qualifying rounds.

Iraq may have won the Asian Cup championship last month but they have been seeded a lowly 12th.

Australia, despite their abject play in the Asian Cup, stayed on top as the No 1 seed.

With the top five being given byes, teams ranked 6-43 are paired by draw and play one home-and-away knock-out round. Teams ranked from 6-24 will be placed in Pot A and teams ranked from 25-43 will be placed in Pot B. From 19 teams that progress through this round, the lowest eight based on ranking move to round two and the other eleven to round three, the AFC said. In round two, the eight lowest-ranked teams will be paired by draw and play one home-and-away knock-out round. Four teams progress to round three.

The next round sees 11 qualifiers from round one and four qualifiers from round two joined by the five highest-ranked countries. These 20 teams are split into five groups of four. First and second in each group qualify for the next round, the AFC said.