2015 AFC Asian Cup

The 2015 AFC Asian Cup was the 16th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation. It was held in Australia from 9 to 31 January 2015. The tournament was won by Australia after defeating South Korea 2–1 in extra time in the final, thereby earning the right to participate in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, which was hosted by Russia. The win was Australia's first Asian title since their move from the Oceania Football Confederation in 2006. It was also the first time a men's team has become champions of two confederations, following Australia's four OFC Nations Cup titles: 1980, 1996, 2000 and 2004; right after the Australian women's team won the 2010 AFC Women's Asian Cup. Australia thus became the final and permanent holder of the old AFC Asian Cup trophy, as the new trophy would debut in the tournament four years later.
Australia was chosen as the host on 5 January 2011, after being the sole bidder for the right to host the 2015 tournament. The matches were played in five different stadiums across five cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Newcastle. It was the first time that Australia had hosted the tournament, and it was also the first time the Asian Cup had been held outside the continent of Asia. As hosts, Australia automatically qualified for the final tournament, while the remaining 15 finalists were decided through a qualification process, featuring 44 teams, from February 2013 to March 2014.
The final tournament was played in two stages: the group stage and the knockout stage. In the group stage each team played three games in a group of four, with the winners and runners-up from each group advancing to the knockout stage. In the knockout stage the eight teams competed in single-elimination matches, beginning with the quarter-finals and ending with the final match of the tournament. A third-place match was also played between the two losing teams of the semi-finals. This was also the last time the tournament had a third-place match, as it wasn't played since the 2019 edition.
Japan were the defending champions going into the tournament, having won the previous competition in 2011. They recorded their worst finish in the Asian Cup since the 1996 edition in the United Arab Emirates, being knocked out in the quarter-finals by that team in a penalty shootout.

Host selection

Australia initially put forward its bid to host the 2015 AFC Asian Cup in 2010. As the sole bidder for the hosting rights, Australia was officially named host on 5 January 2011.

Teams

Qualification

The 2015 AFC Asian Cup qualification process determined the 16 participating teams for the tournament. In the initial scheme, ten places were determined by qualification matches, while six places were reserved for the 2015 host nation, top three finishers in the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, and the two winners of the AFC Challenge Cup. Though, as the host nation Australia also finished as runners-up in the 2011 Asian Cup, the initial six automatic qualification spots were reduced to five, with a total of 11 spots eventually determined by the qualification matches, in which 20 AFC members competed.
There were two main competitive paths to the 2015 Asian Cup. The AFC Challenge Cup acted as a qualification competition for eligible countries within the emerging and developing category of member associations. The winners of the AFC Challenge Cup competitions in 2012 and 2014 qualified automatically for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup finals. The remaining spots were available for the teams competing in the main Asian Cup preliminaries. The AFC decided that the 20 teams involved in the qualifiers would be split into five groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group and one best third-placed team from among all the groups would qualify for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.

Qualified teams

Out of the sixteen teams that qualified, fourteen had participated in the 2011 tournament. Oman qualified for the first time since 2007. Palestine, winners of the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, were the only team making their first appearance in the tournament. India and Syria are the only two teams from the 2011 tournament who failed to qualify for the subsequent edition. Excluding hosts Australia, none of the other 11 members of the ASEAN Football Federation qualified, nor did any of the South Asian national teams.

Team	Method of qualification	Date of qualification	Finals appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
				2011	Runners-up
				2011	Winners
				2011	Winners
				2011	Fourth place
				2011	Fourth place
				2011	Runners-up
				2011	Winners
				2007	Group stage
				2011	Fourth place
				2011	Quarter-finals
				2011	Winners
				2011	Winners
				2011	Quarter-finals
				2011	Winners
				2011	Runners-up
				N/A	N/A

Draw

The draw for the final tournament occurred at the Sydney Opera House on 26 March 2014. The draw procedure involved the 16 participating teams drawn at random into the four groups of the group stage. In preparation for this, the teams were organised into four pots based on a seeding which used the March 2014 FIFA World Rankings. The draw and seeding ensured a fair distribution of teams in the groups, with each of the four groups in the group stage made up of one team from each pot. The host nation was automatically placed into Pot 1, with the team having been predetermined to be in Group A. In addition, at the time of the draw, the identity of the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup winners was not known yet, and they were automatically placed into Pot 4.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4

Venues

Stadiums

The five host cities for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Newcastle, were announced on 27 March 2013, with a total five stadiums to be used.

Ticketing

Tickets for the venues were sold directly by AFC via its website, or distributed by the football associations of the 16 finalists. 500,000 tickets were available for the 31 tournament matches. Over 45,000 international visitors were forecast to visit Australia during the tournament. Prices varied from $10 to $150. In addition to individual match tickets, fans could buy packages to see all matches played at one specific venue.

Team base camps

Each team had a "team base camp" for its stay between the matches. From an initial list of 27 potential locations, the national associations chose their locations in 2014. The teams trained and resided in these locations throughout the tournament, travelling to games staged away from their bases.

Team	Arrival	Last match	Base camp	Group stage venues	QF venues	SF venues	Final venue
			Melbourne	Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane	Brisbane	Newcastle	Sydney
			Ballarat	Melbourne, Canberra & Sydney
			Sydney	Brisbane & Canberra	Brisbane
			Sydney	Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane	Canberra
			Canberra	Brisbane & Canberra	Canberra	Sydney	Newcastle
			Cessnock	Newcastle, Brisbane & Melbourne	Sydney
			Melbourne	Brisbane & Melbourne
			Queanbeyan	Melbourne, Canberra & Newcastle
			Canberra	Sydney, Melbourne & Canberra
			Sydney	Canberra, Sydney & Newcastle
			Brisbane	Newcastle, Melbourne & Canberra
			Canberra	Canberra & Sydney
			Brisbane	Brisbane & Melbourne
			Brisbane	Canberra & Brisbane	Melbourne	Sydney	Sydney
			Gold Coast	Canberra & Brisbane	Sydney	Newcastle	Newcastle
			Melbourne	Sydney, Brisbane & Melbourne	Melbourne