Definitly, and which ever group that is, it will be the group of death I believe. If Philippines are grouped with Turkmenistan or Tajikistan plus a Bangladesh or foreign based Pakistan side, it will be an interesting group. Afghanistan have a good chance of progress, if they are lucky, and can avoid Philippines, the remaining teams in Pot A are beatable (especially Kyrgyzstan, as I would put them in Pot D in terms of skill level.)
Unless Afghanistan keep allot of their players from saff 2011 we dont know if Afghanistan will do well because we have never seen the players from the Afghan Premier league face any team other than the ones in it. They could do allot better or allot worse
Draw : Group A : Myanmar (host) India ,Chinese Taipei and Guam Group B : Kyrgyzstan (host) , Tajikistan , Pakistan and Macau Group C : Nepal (hots) , Palestine , Bangladesh and Northern Marian Islands Group D : Philippines (host) , Turkmenistan , Cambodia and Brunei
Jonny63's usually quite thorough, but his copy and paste wasn't quite working today: here's all 5 groups : Group A : Myanmar (hosts), India , Chinese Taipei and Guam Group B : Kyrgyzstan (hosts), Tajikistan , Pakistan and Macau Group C : Laos (hosts), Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Mongolia Group D : Nepal (hosts), Palestine , Bangladesh and Northern Marian Islands Group E : Philippines (hosts), Turkmenistan , Cambodia and Brunei
The four group winners and two best second-placed teams will join host nation the Maldives at the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup finals. . . . . and DPR Korea . . . .have had their status upgraded and no longer qualify for participation in the competition. http://www.the-afc.com/en/tournaments/men-a-youth/afc-challenge-cup/40712-up-for-the-challenge I think they really mean five group winners and two best second-placed teams
My predictions: Group A: Myannar Group B: Tajikistan Group C: Afghanistan Group D: Palestine Group E: Phillipines 2nd place: Turkmenistan and India
My fearless prediction in the qualification round: Myanmar, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Palestine and the Philippines will top the groups, while the remaining two spots will be given to Bangladesh and Turkmenistan. Group A is my group of death, following the recent rise of Guam in terms of performance, India desperate to recover from a bad 2012 tourney, Chinese Taipei's European recruits like Xavier Chen, and Myanmar being unpredictable in tourneys like these.
Matches will be played on March 2, 4 and 6 with the exception of Group B where the games will be played on March 17, 19 and 21. http://www.the-afc.com/en/tournaments/men-a-youth/afc-challenge-cup/40712-up-for-the-challenge
There is going to be some merciless minnow beating with teams trying to position themselves as the second-best runner up. Group E is interesting. If the Philippines-Turkmenistan match produces a winner then one of the favorites going out before the finals stage becomes a real possibility. Especially because the runners up in Group A, C, and D could run up the score against Guam, Macau, and NMI, respectively.
Myanmar has improved of late... draw with Vietnam and Singapore and some wins over lesser nations. They should give headaches to India.
Yes, a good point , but I think I would replace Guam with Mongolia . Guam just drew Chinese Taipei in EAFF qualifiers and is improving. Brunei is a good team if they field all DPMM Fc players and Cambodia just drew Philippines in a friendly.
Afghanistan cannot have a better chance of qualifying than this time. I was a bit disappointed when they failed to do so the last time, especially considering the terrific SAFF Championship they went on to have later that year.
Fixtures Group B: Round 1 March 17 (Sunday) TAJIKISTAN - Pakistan Kyrgyzstan - Macau 2nd round on March 19 (Tuesday) Macau - TAJIKISTAN Kyrgyzstan - Pakistan 3rd round March 21 (Thursday) Pakistan - Macau Kyrgyzstan - Tajikistan http://www.cissoccer.com/news/11949.html
I fully agree. Laos is a little bit tricky as they are playing host and they pulled out some extraordinary matches in recent months, but overall, I think Afghanistan has a decent chance of winning the group.
Tough draw for the Philippines. In a competition where only the group winners advance plus the two best 2nd place teams, they ended up having the highest ranked team in their group. Fortunately they are the host. Like the other favorites in the other groups, both Turkmenistan and the Philippines will have to make as many goals as they can to get a better goal differential, against the other teams in the group to ensure a 2nd place spot. With Cambodia still possibly withdrawing from the competition, and Brunei very much improved lately, there is no guarantee that they can accomplish this. It is possible one of the 2 favorites will not make the finals. If Cambodia withdraws, the teams in Group E should petition the AFC to have an additional qualifying competition for the 2nd placed teams, in order to ensure fairness in determining who among the teams deserve the 2 remaining spots. The Azkals need to get as many of their best players as they can. Will it be possible to convince the AFC to move the group stage competition in the Philippines to May or June as they have indicated they will try to do to, so that they can ensure that their best European based players will be available?
Palestine matches in AFC Challenge Cup : 2o14 Challenge Cup Qualifiers vs. N. Mariana Islands 02/03/2013 vs. Nepal 04/03/2013 vs. Bangladesh 06/03/2013 http://footballpalestine.blogspot.com
Don't quote me on that jonny63! I only posted those dates based on how the format was devised for the 2012 Challenge Cup Qualifying: 1st seed vs. 3rd seed & 2nd seed vs. 4th seed on match day 1 followed by 3 v. 4 and 1 v. 2 on the next match day.
Do not hold your breath on getting cooperation from the AFC. The best you can hope to do is get the fixtures pushed to around the FIFA dates (March 22 & 26, I believe) but even that is going to be tough.
Afghanistan should have enough strength to top the group. There recent performance in the SAFF Cup showed that the current team are no push overs. Given that they also had a recent national Afghan Premier League, I am sure there are some unknown talent noticed which should only strengthen the national team. They still have towering defender Sharityar and Goal poacher Arezou,..