The first round of five-a-side soccer Asian Cup qualifiers are all over, and China suffered a 1-5 defeat to Thailand, the same as the national soccer team 10 years ago.
However, Thailand was the host of the tournament. China lost, but not the points. Both teams, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, are from West Asia. After a brief and glorious last tournament, the development of futsal in West Asia is clearly lagging behind the rest of the region.
A total of 31 teams participated in the tournament, divided into 8 groups. The second group with better results in Group 1 and Group 7 will advance directly. Their results and those of the last group will not be taken into account compared to the second group. Prior to the tournament, Turkmenistan exited in the same group as the five-member national football team.
Although the Chinese futsal team lost 1-5 to Thailand, the other team was the host and the result was not counted. The AFC has changed the rules so that the Five-a-side National Football Team will play two rounds of matches against Hong Kong, China to determine the final ranking of the group. As long as you win a game, the five-man national soccer team will advance to the final.
There were a lot of chills in this round, the biggest being Saudi Arabia Afghanistan 2-3.Saudi Arabia scored first but then Afghanistan scored three goals in a row before Abdullah Mohammad Alakili scored for Saudi Arabia in the last minute.
The AFC announced on its official website that Afghanistan will advance to the final round after China's Macau suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the same group. Lebanon, the first of the five West Asian footballers, was beaten by Kyrgyzstan.
Japan 4-0 Australia:Japan is the defending champion of this tournament. They defeated Iran in the final of the last match of the tournament. Like other sports, Japan also has a core of naturalized players. Japan's captain white player Oliveira scored a hat-trick in this match to lead his team to victory. Australia finished at the bottom of the table.
Group A: China 1-5 Thailand; despite the standings, matches in this group have not yet officially begun due to the fact that Thailand's results are not counted.
Group B: Indonesia 12-0 Macao, China; Afghanistan 3-2 Saudi Arabia; Macao, China is so bad that they are at the bottom of almost every game. With 3 points, Afghanistan is basically assured of a place in the play-offs. Indonesia and Saudi Arabia will fight for the other spot into the final.
Group C: Iran 18-2 Maldives; Lebanon 3-4 Kyrgyzstan; Lebanon will next face Iran, the strongest team in the Central Asian region, with basically no chance of advancing. The last West Asia explosion, five teams advanced to the final, this year there may be only one or two teams.
Group D: Mongolia Vietnam 6-1; Nepal Korea 5-1;
Group E: Tajikistan 6-3 India, Palestine 1-2 Myanmar; Tajikistan is the most improved team in Asia in both the 11-a-side and 5-a-side formats. No one expected before the tournament that two countries with a population of over 1.4 billion would be at the bottom of the group.
Group F: Kuwait 4-2 Brunei; Bahrain 1-0 Timor-Leste; Bahrain is active in futsal, but the men's soccer team has not improved significantly, while the futsal women's soccer team beat China's futsal women's soccer team to finish third in an invitational tournament in Japan in September.
Group G: Cambodia Uzbekistan 6-1; Malaysia Iraq 2-1;
Group H: Australia, Japan 4-0.
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