2012 AFC Challenge Cup


The 2012 AFC Challenge Cup was the fourth edition of the tournament, an international football competition for Asian Football Confederation member nations that are mainly categorized as "emerging countries" in the defunct Vision Asia programme. It took place in Nepal from 8-19 March 2012. Unlike in previous editions of the tournament, there were no automatic qualifiers. Therefore, 2010 champions football team|North Korea], runners-up Turkmenistan, and third-placed Tajikistan had to navigate the qualification phase in order to return to the finals. North Korea successfully defended their title and qualified for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.

Hosts

Maldives, Nepal and Palestine expressed an interest to bid to host the tournament. A decision on which country would be hosts was set to be made by the Asian Football Confederation on 14 June 2011, but was deferred until the AFC Executive Committee on 29 July 2011. The committee decided to endorse Nepal as the hosts of the AFC Challenge Cup 2012 Finals.

Qualification

The qualification stage saw 20 eligible member associations compete in qualifiers.
  • An initial pre-qualifying round narrowed the field to 16 teams.
  • The final qualifying round consist of four groups of four teams each with the group winners and runners-up qualifying.
  • Only the eight teams that qualified for the tournament finals were permitted to bid to be hosts.

Qualified nations

  • – Qualification Group A winners
  • – Qualification Group A runners-up
  • – Qualification Group B winners
  • – Qualification Group B runners-up
  • – Qualification Group C winners
  • – Qualification Group C runners-up
  • – Qualification Group D winners
  • – Qualification Group D runners-up

Draw

The draw for the final tournament was held on 1 December 2011 at the Soaltee Crown Plaza Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Squads

Each team could name a squad of 23 players.

Group stage

All times are Nepal Time – UTC+5:45
Key to colours in group tables
Top two placed teams advance to the semi-finals

Tie-breaking criteria

The teams are ranked according to points and tie breakers are in following order:
  1. Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
  2. Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
  3. Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
  4. Goal difference in all the group matches;
  5. Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;
  6. Kicks from the penalty mark if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;
  7. Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches;
  8. Drawing of lots.

Group A


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Group B


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Knockout stage

Semi-finals

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Statistics

Individual awards

The following awards were given for the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup:

Team of the tournament

The team of the tournament – Dream Team in a 4-4-2 formation.

Goalscorers

;6 goals
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal
;1 own goal

Post-tournament team ranking

As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.