Jordan (Group A) South Korea (Group B) Vietnam (Group C) Bahrain (Group D) Uzbekistan (Group E) Kuwait (Group F) China (Group G) Thailand (Group H) Tajikistan (Group I) Saudi Arabia (Group J) Indonesia (Group K)
The 2024 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualification was an international men's under-23 football competition which decided the participating teams of the 2024 AFC U-23 Asian Cup.
A total of 16 teams qualified to play in the final tournament,[2] including Qatar who qualified automatically as hosts.[3]
Format changes
The AFC Executive Committee had approved several strategic recommendations put forward by the AFC Competitions Committee, one of which was the removal of zone restrictions in AFC youth competitions.[4]
Draw
Forty-three of the 47 AFC member associations, including the final tournament hosts Qatar, submitted their interest to compete in the qualifiers. The draw took place on 25 May 2023 at 15:00 MST (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[5]
The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup final tournament and qualification. The nations chosen as group hosts were announced on 17 May and were drawn into separate groups at the beginning of the draw.[6] As Qatar already qualified for the final tournament as hosts and their fixtures will be considered as friendly matches, they were seeded as an unranked team for the draw and placed in Pot 4.[6]
Bold indicates that the team has qualified for the final tournament.
Format
In each group, teams played each other once at a centralized venue. The eleven group winners and the four best runners-up qualified for the final tournament.[6]
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:[2]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Lower 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);
Drawing of lots.
Groups
All matches were played between 6 September and 12 September 2023.
The four best-ranked runners-up also qualified for the final tournament.[6]
Due to groups being different sizes, results against fourth-place teams were not used to calculate the ranking; Group B matches against Qatar were treated as friendlies and were not used to determine group standing.[6]
Khusayin Norchaev
