2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualification

2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualification
Tournament details
Host countries	Qatar (Group A); Tajikistan (Group B); Bahrain (Group C); Kuwait (Group D); United Arab Emirates (Group E); Jordan (Group F); Tajikistan (Group G); Singapore (Group H); Kyrgyzstan (Group I); Mongolia (Group J); Japan (Group K)
Dates	22 October – 2 November 2021
Teams	40 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	(in TBD host cities)
	← 2020 2024 →

The 2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualification is an international men's under-23 football competition which decides the participating teams of the 2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup.

A total of 16 teams will qualify to play in the final tournament, including Uzbekistan who qualified automatically as hosts country.^[2]

Draw

Out of the 47 AFC member associations, a total of 42 teams entered the competition. The final tournament hosts Uzbekistan decided to participate in qualification and their matches will not be taken into account when calculating the group ranking and best positioned teams among all the groups.

The draw was held on 9 July 2021, 12:00 (UTC+5), in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.^[3] The 42 teams were drawn into nine groups of four teams and two groups of three teams. For the draw, teams were divided into two zones:

West Zone: 23 teams from West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, to be drawn into five groups of four teams and one group of three teams (Groups A–F).
East Zone: 19 teams from ASEAN (Southeast Asia) and Northeast Asia, to be drawn into four groups of four teams and one group of three teams (Groups G–K).

The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2020 AFC U-23 Championship final tournament and qualification (overall ranking shown in parentheses). The eleven teams which indicated their intention to serve as qualification group hosts prior to the draw were drawn into separate groups.

On 29 July, North Korea withdrew from the competition due to safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, to better balance of the number of teams across all groups, the AFC conducted a draw on 11 August to move one team from Groups G to J, which was Hong Kong, who were placed in Group K.^[4] On 11 October, China also withdrew from the competition for the same reason, leaving Group G with only two teams.^[5]

	Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
West Zone	Saudi Arabia (2) Syria (4) Jordan (5) (H) United Arab Emirates (7) (H) Iran (8) Iraq (9)	Qatar (10) (H) Bahrain (13) (H) Tajikistan (16) (H) Oman (17) Palestine (20) Bangladesh (23)	Kuwait (24) (H) Afghanistan (25) Turkmenistan (26) India (27) Lebanon (30) Yemen (33)	Kyrgyzstan (36) Nepal (37) Maldives (40) Sri Lanka (41) Uzbekistan (Q)
East Zone	South Korea (1) Australia (3) Thailand (6) North Korea (11) (W) Vietnam (12)	Japan (14) China (15) (W) Malaysia (18) Myanmar (19) Singapore (21) (H)	Hong Kong (22) Indonesia (28) Laos (29) Cambodia (31) East Timor (32)	Chinese Taipei (34) Mongolia (35) (H) Philippines (38) Brunei (39) (W)

Notes

Teams in bold qualified for the final tournament.
(H): Qualification group hosts
(N): Not a member of the International Olympic Committee, ineligible for Olympics
(Q): Final tournament hosts, automatically qualified regardless of qualification results
(W): Withdrew after draw
(X): Suspended

Did not enter
West Zone	Bhutan Pakistan (X)
East Zone	Guam Macau (N) Northern Mariana Islands (N)

Player eligibility

Players born on or after 1 January 1999 are eligible to compete in the tournament.^[6]

Format

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. For group G, after the withdrawal of Brunei and China, the 2 teams left (Australia and Indonesia) will play each other twice. Only the winner qualify for the final tournament, while the losers will be eliminated immediately.^[7]

Tiebreakers

Teams are 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 are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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);
Drawing of lots.

Groups

The matches will be played between 22 October and 2 November 2021.^[1]

Schedule
Matchday	Groups A–E, H, J		Groups F, I, K		Group G
Matchday	Dates	Matches	Dates	Matches	Dates	Matches
Matchday 1	27 October 2021	1 v 4, 2 v 3	27 October 2021	3 v 1	27 October 2021	2 v 1
Matchday 2	29 October 2021	4 v 2, 3 v 1	29 – 30 October 2021	2 v 3	30 October 2021	1 v 2
Matchday 3	31 October 2021	1 v 2, 3 v 4	31 October – 2 November 2021	1 v 2

Group A

All matches will be held in Qatar.
Times listed are UTC+3.

Pos	Team	Qualification
1	Syria	Final tournament
2	Qatar (H)	Possible Final tournament
3	Yemen
4	Sri Lanka

First match(es) will be played: 25 October 2021. Source: AFC
Rules for classification: Qualification tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

25 October 2021