In the night after the World Cup draw, the exact match schedule with the kick-off times was fixed by FIFA. A curious fact: the official opening match is the third game of the day. The DFB team will start the tournament in the afternoon.
Host Qatar will play the official opening match at the 2022 World Cup, but not the first game. According to the match schedule published on Saturday night, Senegal’s game against the Netherlands (Group A) will kick off first at 11am (1pm local time) on 21 November, followed by England’s game against Iran (Group B) at 2pm.
Qatar will play against Ecuador at 17:00. However, the Al-Bayt stadium will reportedly host the opening ceremony before the host match.
Germany starts in the afternoon – duel against Spain in primetime
The German national team will begin their World Cup mission in Qatar on 23 November at 2pm (4pm local time) with their first group match against Japan at the Khalifa International Stadium. The top match in Group E against Spain on 27 November and the final match against Costa Rica or New Zealand on 1 December, on the other hand, will take place in German prime time. Both matches start at 8.00 p.m. at the Al-Bayt Stadium.
When designing the match schedule, care was taken to ensure that the kick-off times of the top teams were as convenient as possible for TV broadcasts in their respective time zones.
Who will broadcast the tournament?
If you want to watch all 64 matches of the World Cup, Magenta TV is the right choice. At least 48 World Cup matches will still be shown as usual on ARD/ZDF. The public broadcasters will also be showing all the matches of the German national team.