A total of 43 teams entered the qualification tournament and were drawn into ten groups of five or four teams. West Zone, containing teams from West Asia and South/Central Asia, had one group of five teams and five groups of four teams, while East Zone, containing teams from East Asia and ASEAN, had two groups of five teams and two groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the previous season in 2012. After playing each other once at a centralised venue, the ten group winners and best five runners-up from all groups qualified for the final tournament.[1]
Jo Sang-hyun 3', 66', 90+2' Park Myeong-su 11' Lee Sang-heon24' Lee Yeon-gyu 33', 49', 85' Kang Sang-hee37', 45' Lee Yon-geon 40' You Ju-an54' Kim Ho 81'
In order to ensure equality when comparing the runners-up team of all the groups, the results of the matches between the runner-up team and the bottom-placed team (for Group C, D, E, I and J, which consist of four teams) or two sides from the bottom (for Group A, G and H, which consists of five teams) were considered null and void due to Groups B and F having only three teams participating in the qualifiers.[3]
The best runner-up teams among those ranked second in the groups were determined as follows:
Greater number of points obtained from group matches
Goal difference resulting from group matches
Greater number of goals scored in group matches
Fewer number of points calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received by the team in the group matches
Jong Chang-Bom
