Kuala Lumpur: The draw for the AFC U-16 Championship 2020 Qualifiers concluded at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur yesterday with the 47 teams discovering their opponents. Top spot in the respective groups will earn direct qualification, while the four best second-placed teams will also advance to the 2020 Finals. Should the yet to be determined host for the Finals finish either top of their group or among the best four second-placed teams, the next (5th) second-placed team in the ranking among all groups will qualify instead. Groups with five teams will kick-off the 2020 Qualifiers on September 14, followed by the groups of four teams on September 18, with all ending on the 22nd.
Qualified teams: Bahrain (Hosts) Tajikistan India Iran Saudi Arabia Qatar UAE China Australia Korea DPR Japan Korea Republic Yemen Indonesia Uzbekistan Oman
Any thing suspicious about the Saudi Arabia-Oman 0-0 draw? It was the last qualifier to kick-off, after all the others had basically finished, and a draw was enough to get both teams through to the finals. A loss to either team would have seen the loser eliminated and Vietnam qualify as the 4th best runner up.
Problem is, we can't realistically expect matches to be played simultaneously due to the huge difference in time zones. When it's midnight in the western edge of the continent, it is midday on the other side. Ironically, I suspect the reason why we have an East-West split in these youth qualifiers is to provide a better chance for the likes of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to qualify. Seeing as each group has one host nation, I really don't understand why AFC cannot simply combine both sides.
Could of at least had the 4 most Western Groups kick-off at the same time, the Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran hosted groups.
Here's something AFC can do: 1. Draw mixed groups that contain teams from the east and west. 2. Let nations from the east host all matches in one qualification cycle, and nations from the west host matches in the cycle after that. Simultaneous kick-offs will then be more workable, and hopefully reduce the chances of more dodgy results like that Saudi-Oman game.