The 2018 AFC U-23 Championship (also known as the 2018 AFC U-23 Asian Cup) was the third edition of the AFC U-23 Championship, the biennial international age-restricted football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-23 national teams of Asia. A total of 16 teams competed in the tournament. It took place between 9–27 January 2018,[1] and was hosted by China.[2]
Uzbekistan defeated Vietnam in the final to win their first title. Japan were the defending champions, but failed to defend the title after losing to Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals.
The qualifiers were held from 15 to 23 July 2017.[4] China also participated in the qualifiers, even though they had already qualified automatically as hosts.[2]
Qualified teams
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.[5]
^ abcdefAs China (Group J winners) had already automatically qualified for the final tournament as hosts, the six best runners-up qualified for the final tournament.
Venues
The competition was played in four venues in four cities, all in the province of Jiangsu.[6]
The draw of the final tournament was held on 24 October 2017, 16:00 CST (UTC+8), at the Traders Fudu Hotel in Changzhou.[7] The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams.[6] The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts China automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.[8]
Players born on or after 1 January 1995 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 24.1 and 24.2).[10]
Group stage
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 9.3):[10]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
This was the first time ever that Vietnam and Uzbekistan met together in final. For Vietnam, this was their first appearance in an AFC final at any level.
