Vietnam team may be in the same group with China and Thailand at Asian Cup 2023
Vietnam will be in pot 3 at the draw for the 2023 Asian Cup Finals after the Asian Football Confederation adjusted the seeding method.
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| The Vietnam team will be in group 3 of seeds at the draw ceremony for the 2023 Asian Cup Finals. |
AFC has officially announced the principles of drawing and scheduling the 2023 Asian Cup Finals. Accordingly, the seeding will be based on the latest FIFA rankings, before the draw takes place on May 11 in Doha (Qatar).
Previously, in the 2019 Asian Cup Finals, the AFC placed the 12 teams that qualified for the third round of the Asian World Cup qualifiers into the first two seed groups. If this method were applied, the Vietnamese team would be in the second seed group.
However, the AFC's change makes it certain that the Vietnamese team will be in the third seed group at the 2023 Asian Cup Finals draw. Because the Vietnamese team is ranked 96th in the world and 17th in Asia, it is impossible for them to advance to 12th in Asia when the FIFA rankings are updated on April 6.
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| 24 teams participating in the 2023 Asian Cup Finals. |
According to AFC's seeding grouping, the Vietnamese team will be in the same group with Bahrain (ranked 13th in Asia), Syria (ranked 14th in Asia), Palestine (ranked 15th in Asia), Kyrgyzstan (ranked 16th in Asia) and Lebanon (ranked 18th in Asia).
Pot 1 includes hosts Qatar, Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia and Saudi Arabia. Pot 2 includes Iraq, UAE, Oman, Uzbekistan, Jordan and China. Pot 4 includes Thailand, India, Tajikistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.
According to the plan, the 2023 Asian Cup Finals will take place from January 12, 2024 to February 10, 2024 in Qatar. 24 teams will be divided into 6 groups, each group of 4 teams will compete in a round robin to find 16 teams to continue, including the first and second teams in each group and the 4 third-placed teams with the best results./.
