The Asian Football Confederation has announced the date of the draw for the group round of the 2023 Asia Cup qualifying round, the official website of the Football Federation of Tajikistan reports.
The national team of Turkmenistan will recognize its rivals in the group on February 24, 2022.
The AFC has also announced the “seeding” process and draw mechanism for the qualifying tournament. Following the publication of the latest FIFA rankings, the 2023 Asia Cup qualifying draws will be generated. Tentatively, the national football team of Turkmenistan will fall into the second basket in the draw for the 2023 Asia Cup.
According to the results of the draw, which will take place on February 24, 6 groups of 4 teams will be formed. The qualifying group round matches will be played in a centralized format in one round - June 8, 11 and 14, 2022.
11 teams - 6 group winners, as well as 5 teams that took second place with the best results - will qualify for the final part of the 2023 Asia Cup.
In the qualifying tournament, 24 teams will compete for the right to qualify for the final of the Asian Cup-2023. In addition to Turkmenistan, these are Uzbekistan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain, Palestine, India, Thailand, Philippines, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Yemen, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Maldives, Singapore, Nepal, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Cambodia.
Note that the teams of Iran, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, Oman, Vietnam, China and Qatar have already secured their place in the final of the Asian Cup-2023.
The 2023 Asian Cup will be held in China from June 16 to July 16. The Asian Cup games will be hosted by 10 cities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xian, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen and Suzhou.
At the moment, it has been decided that 24 teams will take part in the Asian Cup-2023. In addition, the tournament itself will last 31 days, which is three days more than the 28-day tournament in the UAE in 2019.
China will host the Asian Cup for the second time in history. The first time it took place in this country was in 2004.
The current winner of the tournament is the Qatar national team. The most titled Asian team is Japan.
In 2004, the national team of Turkmenistan made its debut in the final stage of the Asian Cup in China. In 2019, when the tournament was held in the UAE, the Turkmen national team took part in it for the second time.