Kuwaiti player Faisal Al-Enezi (right), dribbles past South Korean player Jang Hyun-soo (left) during the AFC qualifying football match for the 2018 FIFA World Cup between Kuwait and South Korea on Oct 8 at the Kuwait Sports Club Stadium in Kuwait City. (AFP)

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 12, (Agencies): Kuwait national football team will face its Lebanese counterpart at Kuwait Sporting Club stadium on Tuesday, in the sixth round of the double qualifiers for the World Cup 2018 in Russia and the Asian Cup 2019 in the UAE. Kuwait, currently in the second place with nine points, is looking forward to forget the last 0-1 defeat to South Korea, who currently has 12 points on top of its group (7th group).

Meanwhile, the Lebanese team has six points in the third place; Laos has one point in the fourth by goal difference against Myanmar who currently sits in the fifth place. Both teams have the chance to directly qualify to the Asian Cup if they win tomorrow or be chosen as one of the best second place teams to qualify in the eight groups of 39 teams in the competition.

The Kuwaiti team has won 1-0 against Lebanon in the first round of the qualifiers last September, while also winning 9-0 against Myanmar and 2-0 against Laos. Lebanon on the other hand, won 2-0 against both Myanmar and Laos and lost 0-3 against South Korea.

Teams who achieve the first place in their groups will qualify along with the best four runner-ups to the Asian Cup and will directly enter the World Cup qualifiers. The remaining 24 teams will play another qualifier round to win 11 seat in the Asian Cup while the 12th seat will go to the UAE, the hosting country.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s coach Jose Daniel Carreno warned on Monday against complacency ahead of his team’s 2018 World Cup qualifier against the minnows of Maldives. Qatar go into Tuesday’s match with four wins from four and sit on top of AFC Group C, five points ahead of their nearest rivals, Hong Kong and China.

They have scored 20 goals and conceded only two so far and are one of only three teams across the AFC with a perfect record, Saudi Arabia and South Korea being the other two. Having just beaten China last week, a confident Qatar are fully expected to extend their 100 percent record against the Maldives.

Despite his caution, Carreno’s team only need to win, at most, three of their remaining four matches to progress to the next and most important stage of qualification where 12 teams from across Asia compete for four spots at the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia. Two of those matches come against Group C’s bottom teams, Maldives and Bhutan, who Qatar beat 15-0 in the home fixture.

Qatar started their campaign with a 1-0 win in Male in June. New Maldives coach Ricki Herbert said his team would not be frightened and had not come just to defend. Herbert, who played in the 1982 World Cup finals with New Zealand and swapped shirts with Brazilian legend Socrates after their group clash 33 years ago, said he would play several “youngsters”.

This includes teenage full-back Samooh Ali. The 19-year-old is a semi-professional who works as a fisherman when not playing football, highlighting the differences in resources between the two sides. Super rich Qatar, ranked 92nd in the world, train in elite facilities while Maldives ranked 176th, have just one pitch back home. Hosts of the World Cup in 2022, Qatar are seeking to avoid becoming the first nation since Italy in 1934 to do so without ever playing in a finals beforehand.