Qatar to Play In 2019 Copa America

Qatar will be the “surprise guest” for next year’s South American tournament that will be held in Brazil.

It will be a very intense 2019 for Qatar as their calendar begins to fill up rather quickly. In addition to having already qualified for next year’s Asian Cup to be held over in the United Arab Emirates, they have also taken a step towards preparing for the World Cup they will host in 2022.

Qatar have been confirmed as one of the Asian participants in next year’s Copa America by Aspire director Iván Bravo and then was confirmed by Globoesporte moments afterwards. Bravo was addressing a conference where individuals such as Luiz Felipe Scolari, Roberto Martínez and Julen Lopetegui were present when he shared the news.

For Qatar, this would be the moment that they are looking for to truly begin to test their national team against top flight competition as part of their upcoming World Cup cycle preparations. In this tournament, they would be facing teams like Brazil and Argentina for the first time ever and Bravo mentioned that this would be both a litmus test as well as a means to compete against the best teams in the world.

As of right now, Qatar joins China and Japan as the three Asian invitees to this tournament alongside CONCACAF’s Mexico and United States. The sixth and final team will be unveiled soon. There has been speculation that it will be either Costa Rica or Canada, but there is nothing concrete on that end.