The Asian Cup was held once every four years from the1956 AFC Asian Cup in Hong Kong until the2004 tournament in China. That year, since theSummer Olympic Games and theEuropean Football Championship were also scheduled in the same year as the Asian Cup, the AFC decided to move their championship to a less crowded cycle. After 2004, the tournament was next held in2007, when it was co-hosted by four countries inSoutheast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Thereafter, it has again been held every four years.
The Asian Cup has generally been dominated by a small number of top teams. Prominently successful teams includeJapan (four times),Iran,Saudi Arabia (three times each),South Korea andQatar (twice each). The other teams which have achieved success areAustralia (2015),Iraq (2007) andKuwait (1980).Israel won in1964 but was later expelled and has since joinedUEFA.
Australia joined the Asian confederation in 2007 and hosted the Asian Cup finals in 2015, winning the competition in the final against South Korea. From the2019 tournament forward, the number of teams was expanded from 16 teams to 24 teams, with the qualifying process doubling as part of theFIFA World Cup qualification.[2][3]
A pan-Asian competition was first proposed after the end ofWorld War II, but it was not implemented until the 1950s. Two years after theAsian Football Confederation (AFC) came into being in 1954, the first ever AFC Asian Cup was staged inBritish Hong Kong with seven of the twelve founding members taking part, making the tournament the second oldest continental competition in the world. The qualifying process involved the hosts plus the winners of the various zones (Central, Eastern and Western). It was only a four-team tournament, a format that also existed for 1960 and 1964. Each sub-confederation already hosts their own biennial championship, each with varying degrees of interest.[citation needed]
South Korea demonstrated its superiority in the early years of the competition as the country won the championship in both1956 and1960; this remains as South Korea's best achievements in the tournament.[4]
After Hong Kong and South Korea hosted the two first editions,Israel was chosen as host of the1964 AFC Asian Cup. Using the same format of the two previous editions, this tournament only had four teams and played in one single group to determine the champions. Israel eventually topped the tournament ahead ofIndia with three wins.[5] The format was updated to five teams in 1968 before it was expanded to six teams in 1972 and 1976.
The tournament became the preserve ofIran who won three consecutive tournaments in1968,1972 and1976, with Iran hosting the former and the latter. Iran remains as the only national team in Asia to have won three consecutive Asian Cups. The 1972 final was notable as it was the first Asian Cup to use the group stage-knockout phase format, which was followed in the subsequent tournaments with some alternation.[6] Israel was expelled from the AFC in 1972 due to theArab–Israeli conflict.[7]
From 1980 to 1988, the number of teams taking part expanded to ten, but West Asian countries continued their domination in the 1980s withKuwait becoming the firstArab country to win the championship in1980 held at home soil, beating South Korea 3–0 in thefinal.[8]Saudi Arabia, after an initial poor start, began to emerge as the country qualified, then won two consecutive Asian trophies in1984 and1988, overcoming bothChina and South Korea. Both tournaments were Saudi Arabia's debuts in any major competitions.[9]
Japan's rise and modernization of Asian Cup (1992–2011)
Until the 1990s,Japan was mostly a small name in Asian football, and the country only qualified for the 1988 edition, the first time Japan took part in a continental football tournament. However, as Japan started to make a concrete move inroad to professional football, the country's fortunes increased. Japan hosted the1992 AFC Asian Cup, which was reduced to eight teams and two groups, where it emerged victorious after beating Saudi Arabia, then-defending champions, 1–0, to win the country's first major international honour.[10][11]
The1996 AFC Asian Cup saw the tournament expand to twelve teams in its process of professionalization. Held by the United Arab Emirates, thehosts breached into the final for the first time ever but were unable to win the trophy after losing to Saudi Arabia, who made it into the country's fourth consecutive Asian finals, on penalties. It was Saudi Arabia's third Asian title.[10][12][13]
The2000 AFC Asian Cup saw Lebanon take part in its first Asian tournament, and it was Saudi Arabia who again reached thefinal, but this time, Japan triumphed over Saudi Arabia 1–0 in a final filled with a majority of Saudi supporters.[14] Japan would go on to retain their Asian trophyfour years later, albeit in a more struggling style and a very heated, politically chargedfinal toward hosts China.[15] The 2004 edition was notable as it expanded to 16 teams, and marked Saudi Arabia's absence from an Asian Cup final for the first time.
The2007 AFC Asian Cup was the debut ofAustralia, which had abandoned theOceania Football Confederation in 2006 (coincidentally the first team to qualify for the tournament), as well as being the first football competition in the world to be hosted by more than two nations, with four countries in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia) hosting.[16][17] In this tournament,Iraq was crowned as Asian champions despite the ravaging American invasion, overpowering the likes of Australia, South Korea and Saudi Arabia in the process.[18]
Australia (which joined the AFC in 2006), after its poor debut in 2007, rebounded to reach thefinal in2011 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar, but lost to Japan after extra-time; the win for Japan meant it became the most decorated team in Asian football with four titles.[19] Still, the tournament was notable as the first Asian Cup to use the jersey numbers' order from 1 to 23, previously not practised in prior competitions.
Following Australia's successes in the 2011 Asian Cup, the AFC approved the country to host the2015 AFC Asian Cup. At the tournament, Australia managed to clamp down every opponent with only one loss, against eventual finalist South Korea, whom Australia would get a 2–1final revenge after extra-time; the win officially sealedSoutheast Asia's first Asian title as Australia joined theAFF in 2013.[20] AFC Asian Cup began on 12 January 2024 and ended on 10th February 2024.[21]
At the2019 AFC Asian Cup,video assistant referees were used in the tournament for the first time,[22] and the tournament expanded to 24 teams.[23] In addition, a fourth substitution was allowed during extra time.[24] The tournament, hosted by the United Arab Emirates for the second time, witnessed the rise ofQatar, who conquered its first ever Asian title after beating Japan in thefinal 3–1.[25] The tournament was marred by theQatar diplomatic crisis, due to the UAE's entry ban on Qatari supporters, as well as shoe-throwing in the two teams'semi-final clash.[26]
Since 1972, the final tournament has been played in two stages: the group stage and the knockout stage.
Since 2019, the Asian Cup final tournament has been contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format that was used from2004 to2015.[27][28] Each team plays three games in a group of four, with the winners and runners-up from each group advancing to the knockout stage along with four best third-placed teams. In the knockout stage, the sixteen teams compete in a single-elimination tournament, beginning with the round of 16 and ending with the final match of the tournament.
The original trophy launched in 1956, in use until 2015.
There have been two Asian Cup trophies; the first one used between1956 and2015, and the second one in use since2019.
The first trophy came in the form of a bowl with circular base. It was 42 centimetres tall and weighed 15 kilograms.[29] Until the2000 tournament, the black base contained plaques engraved with names of every winning country, as well as the edition won.[30][31] The trophy was redesigned, adding more silver and reducing the black base to just a thin layer down. This base was plaque-free and the winning countries' names were engraved around the base.[32]
During the draw for the 2019 group stage on 4 May 2018 at theBurj Khalifa in Dubai, an all-new trophy, made by London SilversmithsThomas Lyte, was unveiled. It is 78 centimetres tall, 42 centimetres wide, and weighs 15 kilograms of sterling silver.[33] The trophy is modelled after thelotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant. The five petals of the lotus symbolize the five sub-confederations under the AFC.[34] The winning countries' names are engraved around the trophy base, which is separable from the trophy's main body. The trophy has a handle on each side.
First four edition of competition only had four or five teams and played in one single group. Since1972, the final tournament has introduced the knockout stage. Since2019, no third place play-off has been played; from2023, losing semi-finalists are ranked by the AFC based on goal difference in the semi-finals.[35]
Despite being the second oldest continental football tournament, the AFC Asian Cup has suffered numerous criticisms.[36][37][38] Criticisms over the inability of the AFC Asian Cup to attract large attendances, political interference, high costs of traveling between AFC member states and different cultures were highlighted over the Asian Cup.
The AFC Asian Cup is marked with numerous instances of political interference. One of these was the case ofIsrael, as the team used to be a member of the AFC but following theYom Kippur War and increasing hostility from the Arab AFC members, Israel was expelled from the AFC in 1974 and had to compete in theOFC, until being grantedUEFA membership in 1990.[39] Meanwhile, similar cases also exist in other AFC tournaments like the one betweenSaudi Arabia andIran. Following the2016 attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran, Saudi Arabia had refused to play against Iran and even threatened to withdraw, afterwards blowing over onto international level.[40] Tensions between the two Koreas duringqualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup had ledNorth Korea to withdraw from hosting theSouth Korean team and refusing to display theSouth Korean flag and playtheir national anthem. As a result, North Korea's home matches were moved toShanghai.[41]
Low crowds have also been another problem for the AFC Asian Cup. At the2011 AFC Asian Cup, there had been concerns over low record of crowds due to little football interests and high costs of traveling between Asian nations leading to then-Australia coachHolger Osieck claiming that theQatar Armed Forces were used to fill up the stadiums simply for aesthetics, while Australia internationalBrett Holman commented, "Worldwide it's not recognized as a good tournament".[38]
In 2010, Qatar was chosen as the host country for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The country became the first in the Middle East to host the world's biggest sporting event, triumphing over strong competition from the United States and Australia. Approximately 5 billion people were involved in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, as they followed tournament content through various platforms and devices in the media universe.[42]
On 10 Feb 2024, the AFC announced that the tournament in Qatar had surpassed the previous total attendance record of 1.04 million set during the 2004 tournament in China, with a new record of 1.06 million. This achievement was reached prior to the quarter-final stage.[43][44]
^"AFC Competition Operations Manual (Edition 2023)"(PDF). Asian Football Confederation. p. 88.If there is no 3rd/4th place playoff ... the Participating Teams ranked three (3) and four (4) shall be determined in descending order as follows: (i) superior goal difference in the semi-finals; (ii) higher number of goals scored in the semi-finals; (iii) superior goal difference in the quarter-finals (if applicable); (iv) higher number of goals scored in the quarter-finals (if applicable)...
1 Considered a successor team by FIFA, or have competed under other name(s).2 Israel was a member of the AFC until 1974.3 Recognized by FIFA as defunct.
