2016 AFC U-23 Championship qualification


The 2016 AFC U-23 Championship qualification was a men's under-23 football competition which decided the participating teams of the AFC U-23 Championship. Players born on or after 1 January 1993 were eligible to compete in the tournament.
A total of 16 teams qualified to play in the final tournament, including Qatar who qualified automatically as hosts.
The top three teams of the final tournament qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics men's football tournament in Brazil.
WWW the-afc.com/competition/a...

Draw

The draw for the qualifiers was held on 4 December 2014, 11:00 UTC+8, at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A total of 43 AFC member national teams entered the qualifying stage and were drawn into ten groups.
  • West Zone had 23 entrants from Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia, where they were drawn into three groups of five teams and two groups of four teams
  • East Zone had 20 entrants from ASEAN and East Asia, where they were drawn into five groups of four teams.
The teams were seeded according to their performance in the previous season in 2013.
Pot [|1]Pot [|2]Pot 3Pot 4Pot 5
West Zone









































East Zone
































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;Notes

Format

In each group, teams played each other once at a centralised venue. The ten group winners and the [|best five runners-up] from all groups qualified for the final tournament.

Tiebreakers

The teams were ranked according to [Three Three points for a win|points for a win|points]. If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the 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. If, after applying criteria 1 to 3, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 apply;
  5. Goal difference in all the group matches;
  6. Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;
  7. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;
  8. Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches ;
  9. Drawing of lots.

Group stage

The matches were played between 23 and 31 March 2015 for Groups A and C ; 27–31 March 2015 for Groups D–J ; 16–20 May 2015 for Group B.
Legend
Group winners and best five runners-up qualify for the finals

Group A

  • All matches were held in Oman.
  • Times listed were UTC+4.

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Group B


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Group C


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Group D


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Group E


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Group F

  • All matches were held in Taiwan.
  • Times listed were UTC+8.

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Group G


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Group H


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Group I


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Group J

  • All matches were held in Laos.
  • Times listed were UTC+7.

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Ranking of second-placed teams

In order to ensure equality when comparing the runner-up team of all groups, the results of the matches against the 5th-placed team in Groups A and C were ignored due to the other groups having only four teams.
The best runner-up teams among those ranked second in the groups were determined as follows:
  1. Greater number of points obtained from group matches identified by AFC;
  2. Goal difference resulting from group matches identified by AFC;
  3. Greater number of goals scored in group matches identified by AFC;
  4. Greater number of wins in group matches identified by AFC;
  5. Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in group matches identified by AFC ;
  6. Drawing of lots.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
TeamQualified asQualified onPrevious appearances in tournament2

Goalscorers

;6 goals
;5 goals
;4 goals
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal
;1 own goal
  • Manas Karipov
  • Tang Hou Fai
  • Nadir Mabrook
  • Saeed Awadh Al-Yami
  • Sunil Roshan