Qatar

Qatar are on their fifth manager in four years following an underwhelming showing as the hosts of the 2022 World Cup finals, and the current man for the job is Julen Lopetegui, who will actually coach the team that hired him (instead of being sacked on the eve of the tournament as with Spain in 2018). Qatar's road to the World Cup was not the smoothest, with mixed results and multiple cancelled friendlies due to the war in Iran. Tactically, their defensive structure, a strong point in 2022, is not as solid as before and several key players from the 2022 project are in the twilight of their careers.

With the ball, Lopetegui's Qatar typically take up a 4-2-3-1 shape and prefer to place the responsibility of progression on their ball-retentive players. A logical tactic to fall back on when you have Akram Afif, but the extent to which he bears the burden of creation is dangerously close to resembling that of 2022. In an effort to avoid the pitfalls of Afif hero-ball, Lopetegui has tried a number of approaches (including using Afif or the squad's other ball-carriers in Yusuf Abdurisag, Edmilson Junior and Mohamed Al-Manai as false nines) to no avail. In the interest of pragmatism, it seems likely that Qatar will revert to using Almoez Ali as a target man, even though he has not had his best year. In defense, Qatar often drop one midfielder back to form a 5-2-3 or 5-3-2, resembling iterations under previous managers.