Seven Manchester City players will definitely be at the World Cup in Qatar next year, and six more can join them with a positive result this week in the final round of European qualification.
City's Portuguese players were disappointed on Sunday as they fell to a late defeat by Serbia, knocking them into next year's play-offs, while Aleks Zinchenko and Ukraine will be hoping to join them to keep their own qualification hopes alive.
Pep Guardiola might hope for as few players as possible to be involved in the high-intensity play-offs, but he knows that for Zack Steffen and Riyad Mahrez, their hopes of reaching Qatar will continue into the new year anyway.
With England, the Netherlands and Ukraine playing on Monday, we've looked at which players have confirmed their places at the 2022 World Cup, and which Blues still have work to do to get there.
Who has already confirmed their place?
Spain secured a tense win over Sweden on Sunday, knowing defeat would have seen them drop into the play-offs. Aymeric Laporte started the game, and helped his new nation squeeze through in Seville, with Rodri a late substitute to see the game out. Ferran Torres will be back available for Spain by the time the squad is announced for Qatar.
Ilkay Gundogan will surely be part of the Germany squad going to Qatar, as they rounded off their qualifying campaign with a 4-1 win over Armenia which featured a brace from the City man. Belgium and Kevin De Bruyne are also safely through with a game to spare.
Ederson and Gabriel Jesus helped Brazil become the first South American nation to qualify for the World Cup, which will be held in December 2022.
Who can secure qualification this week?
If England avoid defeat against the world's lowest-ranked side San Marino on Monday night, they will qualify as group winners for the World Cup, looking to improve on their semi-final finish in 2018. That would see John Stones, Kyle Walker, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and Raheem Sterling all take part in the tournament.
Nathan Ake has largely been restricted to a substitute role for the Netherlands recently, but will be on hand to help the Netherlands get the win they need to finalise their place in Qatar. They face Norway, who must win to keep up their own chances of qualification either automatically or through the play-offs. Given Holland's superior goal difference over Norway and second-placed Turkey, a draw against Norway will realistically be enough to see the Dutch through.
If they lose, they could go out altogether, or face the play-offs in March.
Aleks Zinchenko's Ukraine side can't qualify automatically, but can still keep their hopes alive by beating Bosnia and Herzegovina in their final game, hoping Finland lose to France to allow them to leapfrog into second place in their group. If Ukraine win by two goals, they would still finish second even if Finland can draw with France due to their goal difference situation, with the French already qualified.
Who must wait to secure qualification?
Portugal were stunned by Serbia on Sunday and must face a two-game play-off campaign in March comprising of a seeded semi-final and unseeded final, both one-off games.
Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo and Ruben Dias will be involved for Portugal, who will be seeded for the semi-final and face an unseeded nation. Of the countries already through, Austria and North Macedonia are potential unseeded opponents, while Czech Republic, Scotland, Wales and Sweden are yet to be given seeded status. The final play-off positions look likely to be taken by Poland, Turkey or Norway, Finland or Ukraine, and Italy or Switzerland.
Away from Europe, Riyad Mahrez and Algeria will finish top of their Round Two qualifying group if they avoid defeat against Burkina Faso on Tuesday. That would send them into a final round of ten nations playing a two-legged tie against another to earn one of five African spots at the World Cup.
Those games will be played in March, with DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Senegal already confirmed to be taking part.
And finally, Zack Steffen will be hoping to qualify with the United States and they are currently first in their CONCACAF group, level on points with Mexico after their 2-0 win over their rivals with seven games played. With the top three of the eight-nation group qualifying for the World Cup automatically, the US will be looking to keep up with the leaders.
If they were to finish fourth, where Panama currently stand, they would go into an intercontinental play-off in June to qualify, with an eight point gap between them and fifth with seven games remaining. Those fixtures will be played in January and March, keeping City's hopes of having a maximum of 19 players involved in the World Cup from 19 possible internationals.
