Bruno Fernandes scores twice as Portugal seal their place at World Cup finals, while Poland join them in Qatar

Portugal sealed their place in the World Cup finals with a 2-0 win over North Macedonia in Porto.

After being played in by a neat bit of skill from the Portuguese star, Fernandes opened the scoring with a 32nd-minute opener.

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There was no danger of the North Macedonians repeating the heroics that saw them dump Italy out of the play-offs with a dramatic late winner in Palermo last week.

In the 65th minute, he finished off a lightning counter-attack by stroking the ball past keeper Stole Dimitrievski to seal the passage for his side.

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In Chorzow, Poland beat Sweden 2-0 and then joined Portugal in Qatar.

The Poles were granted a bye to the final stage of the competition after the expulsion of Russia.

When is the draw?

The first winter World Cup will be known by the end of March. The final three places will be decided in the intercontinental playoffs in June as well as the final European playoff final which has been delayed due to the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

The draw for the tournament will take place on Friday 1 April 2022, at the DECC venue in Doha, Qatar.

You can watch the draw on skysports.com and the Sky Sports app.

What is the format of the draw?

The 32 nations that will participate in the World Cup will be grouped into four groups.

The top-rated teams will join the host nation in pot one of Group A. Europe can't have more than two nations in any one group, but each group will have no more than one nation from any confederation.

Who will be the seeded nations?

Scotland and Wales will be in with the lowest seeds.

By the time of the draw, the three teams with a chance of progressing through the play-off path will be treated as one entrant, and placed in pot four with the lowest-ranked nations.

The seeding of nations who have qualified by the time of the draw will be determined by the ranking of the nations by March 31.

The seven highest-ranked sides will be included in the top pot of seeds. England is ranked fifth in the world, with only Belgium, Brazil, France and Argentina above them.

England could be drawn in the same group as Germany, who are currently ranked 11th and therefore among the pot of second seeds.