The AFC U-23 Championship qualifiers will be held between 23-31 March 2015. The group winners of the 10 groups and the best five runners-up will join host Qatar in the finals of the next year’s competition. The AFC U-22 Championship started back in 2013 and the finals in Doha would be the second edition of the competition. Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Jordan, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan will host the matches of the West Zone while Laos the hosts of East Zone, apart from Laos hosting Group H, will be confirmed later. Group A: Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Maldives Group B: Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan Group C: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nepal, Palestine, Afghanistan Group D: UAE, Yemen, Tajikistan , Sri Lanka Group E: Syria, Uzbekistan, India, Bangladesh Group F: Australia, Myanmar, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong Group G: North Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines Group H: South Korea, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Brunei Group I: Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau Group J: China, Laos, Singapore, Mongolia http://www.the-afc.com/competition/afc-u-23-championship
We were supposed to see a live feed of the match from an Omani channel. Unfortunately (or fortunately, my bad ) Oman's Sultan just returned from a long stint of medical treatment at Germany and they showed 45 minutes of Omani's waving flags on the streets instead. Gotta love Asia.
Maldives finally has a decent youth team. Most of the players are already established starters at clubs. Stark contrast to the last qualifiers, when FAM were forced to scrape the barrel by holding trials and making do with a bunch of volunteers. In the end Lebanon wisened up and played long balls into the box, using their height advantage to full effect. Hopefully we'll manage to get something out of the Bahrain and Oman games.
Group A : Oman 1 - 1 Bahrein Lebanon 2 - 1 Maldives Group C : Iran 5 - 0 Nepal Palestine 2 - 0 Afghanistan
Lebanon - Iraq on 17:30 local time. Honestly I can't wait Many good players involved in the Olympic team. Iraq has a bright future
Yea, that's what Oman federation and Oman TV said to Al Jadeed, lebanese channel Anw, I hope that Iraq sports tv will broadcast the game...
Oman TV are such a letdown. They even showed the whole pre-match build-up show just before the first round of matches before cutting off. Also, Maldives are set to park the bus against Iraq on Friday, especially after their attacking gameplane failed against Bahrain.
Oman TV? I grew up in Oman during the late 80s long before there was internet streaming or even satellite dishes and all we had was Oman TV!!!! I remember there was nothing on at all until 3.30 pm, then it was basically the Sultan's marching band for about half an hour, the national anthem and pics of the sultan followed by religious teachings for the first couple of hours... then we got one Arabic soap opera, one English program (Alf, Cosby Show, That's Incredible, etc.), then the news in Arabia + English (and don't even start me on the news lol), then religious programs + the national anthem again and again until about midnight. The one good thing about Oman TV had over US TV is that they would always, always stop the routine if there was an important soccer game on, so couldn't complain too much!