KUALA LUMPUR - Four-times Asian champions Japan have been drawn to take on Australia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, China and Indonesia in Group C of the third round of Asia's qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.

South Korea will meet Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Palestine and Kuwait in Group B while Iran take on Qatar, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan and North Korea in Group A.

The preliminaries begin on Sept. 5 and run until June 10, with the winners and runners-up in each group qualifying automatically for the finals in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The third and fourth place finishers in each group will advance to a fourth round, which will determine the continent's two remaining guaranteed qualifiers.

(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Miral Fahmy)