The 5th U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers took place on 31 October with 10 matches in 6 groups and produced 8 line teams. Iran, Iraq, Qatar and other strong teams have qualified. The biggest surprise of this qualifier is that turkmenistan U23 from Central Asia won the ticket to the final stage for the first time.
The new U23 Asian Cup qualifiers began on 23 October, with 39 teams divided into 11 groups competing for 15 tickets to the final stage. Affected by the epidemic, many teams, including the Chinese team, have withdrawn from the competition before the game, and the number of participating teams in each group is different, which also adds uncertainties to the competition of the entire event. However, none of these factors has prevented the traditional strong team from advancing. In the third round of last weekend, Group A Qatar drew 1-1 with Syria with a controversial penalty at home, thus winning the first place in the group with a record of 2 wins and 1 draw. Syria, one of the top 8 in the last tournament, missed out.
Group B Iran, led by the famous Madaviya, won 3-0 against the host Tajikistan team with the "hat trick" of captain Yasin Salmani, and won the first place in the group with three consecutive wins and successfully advanced. Group C Iraq also won 3-0 against Bahrain, the host team of the group, to qualify as the top team in the group.
Group D exposed the cold, the last runner-up Saudi Arabia surprisingly lost 1-2 to Kuwait, Kuwait with a 2-game winning record, early locked the right to qualify for this group. This is also the first time that Kuwait has returned to the final round of the U23 Asian Cup after the inaugural tournament in 2014.
Group E, the UAE, took Oman 2-0 and qualified as the top team in the group. Group F Jordan drew 1-1 with Palestine, winning 1 win and 1 draw to finish first in the group. Turkmenistan, on the other hand, lost 0-1 to Jordan, but as a result, it won 3-1 against Palestine, thus becoming one of the four best second-place teams to advance to the final stage.
In the East Asia region, the defending champions South Korea showed absolute strength in the Group H competition, beating Singapore 5-1, thus qualifying with three consecutive wins, 14 goals and only one goal conceded. In the Group G competition, which only 2 teams competed, Australia qualified by beating Indonesia 3-2, 1-0.
The competition in Group J was dramatic. Malaysia first won consecutive victories over Mongolia and Laos before drawing 0-0 with Thailand. Thailand's hosts Mongolia were forced to draw 1-1 in the first round and beat Laos 3-0 in the second round. Therefore, it is only possible to win the first place in the group if you win the Malaysian team in the final round. But the two teams eventually exchanged white papers. Laos then defeated Mongolia 3-2. Laos finished 3rd in the group and Mongolia 4th in the group. Thailand, as the second place team in the group, was not counted as the result of the draw with Mongolia when compared with the other second place teams in the group, so thailand became one of the four best 2nd place teams, thus being lucky enough to advance to the final stage.
The Japanese team in Group K easily defeated Hong Kong and Cambodia respectively by a score of 4-0, and also advanced strongly. So far, a total of 13 teams have advanced to the final stage, namely the host Uzbekistan, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Australia, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand and Turkmenistan.
So far, only 3 games have been played in this U23 Asian Cup qualifier. They are Group D Saudi arabia and Bangladesh, Kuwait and Uzbekistan, and Group I Vietnam and Myanmar, which will be played on November 2. The last 3 teams will spawn with the results of this 3 matches.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Xiao Zhao
Editor/Xu Zhao