2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification

2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification

Tournament details
Host countries	Tajikistan (Group A)  North Korea (Group B)  Palestine (Group C)  Vietnam (Group D)
Dates	3–12 April 2017[1]
Teams	21 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	38
Goals scored	206 (5.42 per match)
Attendance	138,337 (3,640 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Maysa Jbarah (13 goals)

The 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification was the qualification tournament for the 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup.^[2]

A total of 21 teams entered the qualification tournament, which decided four of the eight participating teams in the final tournament held in Jordan.^[3] This tournament also served as the first stage of Asian qualification for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, with the top five teams of the final tournament qualifying for the World Cup.^[4]

Draw

A total of 24 AFC member national teams entered the 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup, with Japan, Australia, and China PR automatically qualified for the final tournament by their position as the top three teams of the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup and thus did not participate in the qualifying competition. Jordan also automatically qualified for the final tournament as hosts, but decided to also participate in the qualifying competition.^[5]

The draw was held on 21 January 2017, 15:00 AST (UTC+2), at the Grand Hyatt in Amman, Jordan.^[6][7] The 21 teams were drawn into one group of six teams and three groups of five teams.^[5]

The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup final tournament and qualification. The following restrictions were also applied:^[8][9]

• The four teams which indicated their intention to serve as qualification group hosts prior to the draw were drawn into separate groups.^[10]
• As Iran and Syria had indicated they would not travel to Palestine, they would not be drawn into the group hosted by Palestine.

Automatically qualified for final tournament and not participating in qualification
Japan  Australia  China PR
Participating in qualification
Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5 (unranked)
South Korea  Thailand  Vietnam (H)  Jordan (Q)	Myanmar  Chinese Taipei  Uzbekistan  Philippines	Hong Kong  Bahrain  Lebanon (W)  Iran	India  Palestine (H)	Guam (W)  Iraq  North Korea (H)  Singapore  Syria  Tajikistan (H)  United Arab Emirates

Did not enter

Afghanistan  Bangladesh  Bhutan  Brunei  Cambodia  Indonesia  Kuwait (suspended)  Kyrgyzstan  Laos  Macau  Malaysia  Maldives  Mongolia    Nepal  Oman  Pakistan  Qatar  Saudi Arabia  Sri Lanka  Timor-Leste  Turkmenistan  Yemen

Notes

• Teams in bold qualified for the final tournament
• (H): Qualification group hosts
• (Q): Automatically qualified for final tournament regardless of qualification results
• (W): Withdrew after draw

Format

In each group, teams played each other once at a centralised venue. The four group winners qualified for the final tournament. If Jordan won their group, the runner-up of their group also qualified for the final tournament.^[7]

Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 11.5):^[2]

1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
5. Goal difference in all group matches;
6. Goals scored in all group matches;
7. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
8. Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
9. Drawing of lots.

Groups

Group A was played between 3–12 April, Groups B and D were played between 3–11 April, while Group C, after the withdrawal of two teams, was played between 3–7 April 2017.^[7]

Schedule^[11]

Matchday	Group A		Groups B & D		Group C
	Dates	Matches	Dates	Matches	Dates	Matches
Matchday 1	3 April 2017	3 v 1, 4 v 6, 2 v 5	3 April 2017	3 v 2, 5 v 4	3 April 2017	3 v 1
Matchday 2	5 April 2017	1 v 5, 2 v 4, 3 v 6	5 April 2017	4 v 1, 5 v 3	5 April 2017	2 v 3
Matchday 3	7 April 2017	5 v 3, 6 v 2, 1 v 4	7 April 2017	1 v 5, 2 v 4	7 April 2017	1 v 2
Matchday 4	10 April 2017	4 v 5, 6 v 1, 2 v 3	9 April 2017	2 v 5, 3 v 1	—
Matchday 5	12 April 2017	5 v 6, 3 v 4, 1 v 2	11 April 2017	4 v 3, 1 v 2	—

Group A

• All matches were held in Tajikistan.^[12]
• Times listed were UTC+5.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Jordan[lower-alpha 1]	5	5	0	0	37	3	+34	15	Final tournament
2	Philippines	5	3	1	1	18	6	+12	10
3	Bahrain	5	2	2	1	10	8	+2	8
4	United Arab Emirates	5	2	1	2	5	11	−6	7
5	Tajikistan (H)	5	1	0	4	3	23	−20	3
6	Iraq	5	0	0	5	0	22	−22	0

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Group B

• All matches were held in North Korea.^[13]
• Times listed were UTC+8:30.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	South Korea	4	3	1	0	21	1	+20	10	Final tournament
2	North Korea (H)	4	3	1	0	18	1	+17	10
3	Uzbekistan	4	2	0	2	9	10	−1	6
4	India	4	1	0	3	3	25	−22	3
5	Hong Kong	4	0	0	4	1	15	−14	0

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Group C

• All matches were held in Palestine.
• Times listed were UTC+3.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Thailand	2	2	0	0	7	0	+7	6	Final tournament
2	Chinese Taipei	2	1	0	1	5	1	+4	3
3	Palestine (H)	2	0	0	2	0	11	−11	0
4	Lebanon	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Withdrew
5	Guam	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

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Group D

• All matches were held in Vietnam.^[14]
• Times listed were UTC+7.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Vietnam (H)	4	4	0	0	27	1	+26	12	Final tournament
2	Myanmar	4	3	0	1	22	2	+20	9
3	Iran	4	2	0	2	19	8	+11	6
4	Singapore	4	1	0	3	1	20	−19	3
5	Syria	4	0	0	4	0	38	−38	0

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Qualified teams

The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in tournament1
Jordan	* !Hosts	000000002016-09-04-00004 September 2016[3]	1 (2014)
Japan	1 !2014 champions	000000002017-01-21-000121 January 2017	15 (1977, 1981, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)
Australia	2 !2014 runners-up	000000002017-01-21-000221 January 2017	5 (1975, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)
China PR	3 !2014 third place	000000002017-01-21-000321 January 2017	13 (1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)
Philippines	A !Group A runners-up	000000002017-04-10-000010 April 2017	8 (1981, 1983, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003)
South Korea	B !Group B winners	000000002017-04-11-000111 April 2017	11 (1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)
Thailand	C !Group C winners	000000002017-04-07-00007 April 2017	15 (1975, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)
Vietnam	D !Group D winners	000000002017-04-11-000211 April 2017	7 (1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014)

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

Goalscorers

There were 206 goals scored in 38 matches, for an average of 5.42 goals per match.

13 goals

9 goals

8 goals

6 goals

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

Source: the-afc.com

References

External links

• AFC Women’s Asian Cup, the-AFC.com