ASIAD 18 redraw, Vietnam's chances of entering the knockout round decrease
With the ASIAD 2018 Organizing Committee deciding to completely redraw the men's football tournament group at ASIAD 2018 as well as change the tournament rules, Vietnam's ability to enter the knockout round will become more difficult than before.
According to the latest announcement from the Organizing Committee of the host country Indonesia, the draw for men's football on July 5 has been canceled after the incident of missing two Olympic teams Palestine and UAE. Specifically, the redraw is scheduled to take place on July 22. The media has also received an invitation to attend at the AFC headquarters in Bukit Jalil (Malaysia).
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The Indonesian Organizing Committee has also recalculated the seeding method. Specifically, 26 teams will be divided into 4 groups. Group 4 includes only 2 teams: Chinese Taipei and Myanmar. The remaining 24 teams are divided equally into the 3 groups above. Vietnam Olympic Team is in group 2 with 7 teams: Uzbekistan, Hong Kong, Palestine, China, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
Host Indonesia is placed in Group 1 along with 7 strong teams of the continent including: South Korea, North Korea, Iraq, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia and UAE. Group 3 includes Iran, Pakistan, Laos, East Timor, Nepal, Qatar, Bahrain and Syria.
The 26 teams will be divided into 8 groups, including 2 groups of 4 teams and 6 groups of 3 teams. The group stage will be played in a round-robin format, with the top 2 teams from each group advancing to the next round.
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| The re-drawing results for the draw are expected to take place on July 22. |
Thus, with the re-drawing and change in the selection format for the teams to continue, the chance of the Vietnam Olympic team to continue suddenly went from wide open to significantly reduced.
Previously, according to the draw results on July 5, Vietnam Olympic Team was in the same group with Japan, Pakistan and Nepal. With such a group, Vietnam Olympic Team has the ability to finish in second place. Even if it is ranked third, Vietnam can still enter the group of 4/6 third-placed teams with the best results.
Now, with the redraw, Vietnam could fall into a difficult group with Japan (group 1), Iran (group 3) and Myanmar (group 4). Competing for one of the two group positions to win the right to continue will be much more difficult.
The 18th Asian Games will take place in Indonesia at the end of August. Before that, the host Vietnam Olympic will participate in the Four Nations tournament. Vietnam Olympic’s opponents are Palestine, Uzbekistan and Oman. The matches will take place at My Dinh Stadium from July 3-7.
