The2020 AFC U-23 Championship qualification was an international men's under-23football competition which decide the participating teams of the2020 AFC U-23 Championship.
A total of 16 teams qualified to play in the final tournament, includingThailand who qualified automatically as hosts country.[2] These matches also served as the first stage of the AFC qualifiers for the2020 Summer Olympics men's football tournament inJapan.
Of the 47AFC member associations, a total of 44 teams entered the competition. The final tournament hosts Thailand decided to participate in qualification despite having automatically qualified for the final tournament.
The draw was held on 7 November 2018, 15:00MYT (UTC+8), at the AFC House inKuala Lumpur,Malaysia.[3][4] The 44 teams were drawn into eleven groups of four teams. For the draw, teams were divided into two zones:
East Zone: 20 teams fromASEAN andEast Asia, to be drawn into five groups of four teams (Groups G–K).
The teams were seeded according to their performance in the2018 AFC U-23 Championship final tournament andqualification (overall ranking shown in parentheses; NR stands for non-ranked teams). The following restrictions were also applied:[5]
The eleven teams which indicated their intention to serve as qualification group hosts prior to the draw were drawn into separate groups.
In each group, teams play each other once at a centralized venue. The eleven group winners and the four best runners-up qualify for the final tournament. If the final tournament hosts Thailand win their group or are among the four best runners-up, the fifth best runner-up also qualifies for the final tournament.
Teams are ranked according topoints (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 9.3).[6]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
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);
Due to groups having different number of teams (after the withdrawal of Pakistan from Group F), the results against the fourth-placed teams in four-team groups were not considered for this ranking.
Lee Dong-gyeong(6 goals)
Qatar(H)
Oman
Afghanistan
Nepal
Bahrain(H)
Palestine
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Iraq
Iran(H)
Turkmenistan
Yemen
United Arab Emirates
Saudi Arabia(H)
Lebanon
Maldives
Jordan
Syria
Kuwait(H)
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan(H)
Tajikistan
India
Pakistan
North Korea
Singapore
Hong Kong
Mongolia(H)
Australia
Cambodia(H)
Chinese Taipei
Japan
Myanmar(H)
Timor-Leste
Macau
China
Malaysia(H)
Laos
Philippines
Vietnam(H)
Thailand[a]
Indonesia
Brunei
