In the early hours of June 15, the dust settled on the qualifiers for the 18th AFC Asian Cup 2023 and the top 24 teams were officially revealed. Despite our Hong Kong's 0-4 defeat against India in the tournament, Hong Kong soccer returned to the Asian Cup after 55 years with a stellar second-place performance in the group.
The qualifiers are divided into three stages, with 46 teams competing for 40 places in the first stage, and the second stage merged with the World Qualifiers, with 40 teams competing for 12 places. The third stage is 27 into 11, and the 24 teams that fail to qualify for the second stage are divided into six groups, with the first place winner in each group and the five second place winners with the best results qualifying for the tournament.
After three rounds of fierce battles, six group winners were crowned, namely Jordan, Palestine, Uzbekistan, India, Bahrain and Tajikistan. Except for Tajikistan, the other five group winners all advanced with three wins. In the battle for second place in the group, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan finished second in their respective groups, with the Philippines becoming the only second place in the group to be eliminated. This is also the first time that Hong Kong has appeared on the stage of the main round of the Asian Cup after 55 years since the 1968 Asian Cup.
With this, all 24 teams for the 18th AFC Asian Cup in 2023 have been confirmed, including Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, Oman, China, Uzbekistan, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Lebanon, Palestine, India, Thailand, Tajikistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.
On May 14 this year, the 2023 Asian Cup China Organizing Committee released the news that the 2023 AFC Asian Cup will be held in a different location. The announcement pointed out that the Asian Cup originally scheduled to be held in China from June 16 to July 16, 2023, due to the impact of the epidemic, the organizing committee can not guarantee a completely open format of the event, by the AFC, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and the Organizing Committee of the 2023 Asian Cup in China to discuss the decision to this Asian Cup soccer tournament to be held in a different place, the new location of the tournament is being urgently confirmed in.
