The first ever winter edition of the tournament gets underway on November 21, interrupting the domestic campaign to do so, with the final taking place under a month later on December 18.
Watching Weerathep Pomphan skillfully control games at the heart of the Thailand national team, you would never guess he hardly ever played football as a child.
The group stage draw for this year s World Cup takes place on Friday. Here, Sportsmail runs the rule over the teams in contention, picking out star players and looking back at how they got there.