{"id":89956,"date":"2026-06-16T01:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/89956\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T01:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T01:29:08","slug":"qatar-lineup-vs-canada-predicted-xi-for-world-cup-group-b-clash-as-the-maroons-record-goalscorer-seeks-his-first-appearance-at-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/89956\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar lineup vs. Canada: Predicted XI for World Cup Group B clash as the Maroons record goalscorer seeks his first appearance at World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riding high after their first point at a World Cup, Qatar<\/a> will aim to create another surprise result when they square off with co-hosts Canada<\/a> at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The reigning two-time Asian champions benefitted from an own-goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time to earn a shock 1-1 draw<\/a>\u00a0versus group favourites Switzerland last week.<\/p>\n

Julen Lopetegui<\/a> elected not to put several proven goal scorers in the starting 11, with record goalscorer Almoez Ali<\/a> and Hassan Al-Haydos<\/a> both beginning on the bench, with the latter the only one of the two to see the field against the Swiss.<\/p>\n

Ali has 60 goals all-time, while the top goalscorer at the 2023 Asian Cup, Akram Afif<\/a> and Al-Haydos are tied for third with 41 goals each, one fewer than Mansour Muftah for second.<\/p>\n

Mahmud Abunada is the big reason Qatar had a chance to level their opening match, with the Al-Rayyan goalkeeper making nine stops as he was voted Man of the Match by the fans.<\/p>\n

He replaces Meshaal Barsham as the first-choice keeper, with the latter being the Golden Glove winner from the 2023 Asian Cup.<\/p>\n

Pedro Miguel, better known as Ro-Ro<\/a> reached the century mark for caps on Saturday, playing the full 90 minutes at centre-back, while Ahmed Fathy can get to 50 appearances should he feature in this upcoming game.<\/p>\n

Homam Ahmed is the only player on the World Cup squad who plays outside of Qatar, with the 26-year-old currently featuring in the Spanish second division at Cultural Leonesa.<\/p>\n

While Lopetegui started numerous players with plenty of international experience in their opener, he also had two relatively new faces in the starting 11 with Ayoub Al-Oui and Issa Laye collecting their seventh and fifth caps, respectively.<\/p>\n

Qatar possible starting lineup: <\/p>\n

Abunada; Al-Oui, Miguel, Khoukhi, H. Ahmed; Gaber, Laye; Junior, Madibo, Afif; Ali<\/p>\n

> Click here to see how Canada could line up against Qatar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Riding high after their first point at a World Cup, Qatar will aim to create another surprise result…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,7170,7424,354,1817,1090,1785,289,11765,5181,3294,34182,34181,25586],"class_list":["post-89956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-epl","tag-football","tag-formula-1","tag-golf","tag-nfl","tag-olympics","tag-premier-league","tag-rugby","tag-sport","tag-sports-mole","tag-teams","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}