According to this, North Korea haven't entered the 2014 Asian Cup, despite finishing runners up in the last edition in 2010. http://www.vb.kg/news/sport/2012/07...tsia_na_13_m_meste_v_reytinge_afk_spisok.html 4 teams will qualify automatically for the finals (Wikipedia says the finals will be in Hong Kong, not sure about this), based on their performance at the 2010 Asian Cup. 4 automatic qualifiers - Australia, Japan, China, South Korea. The remaining 17 teams (could eventually be less due to withdrawals) will be divided into 4 groups (3 groups of 4, 1 group of 5), and it would appear that the winner of each of those groups would qualify for the 8-team finals (this would also mean Hong Kong would not get an automatic berth, even as hosts). Qualifying (early 2013) 1st seeds: Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Uzbekistan 2nd seeds: Jordan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iran 3rd seeds: Kyrgyzstan, Palestine Other entrants (did not participate in 2010 edition): Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Philippines Apart from North Korea, Maldives is the only other team who played the 2010 edition and did not enter the 2014 edition.
I don't know the reason behind that (maybe it's because the 2014 Asian Cup qualifies for 2015 World Cup in Canada and North Korea is already disqualified from that event? So they somehow said: "Who cares about Asian Championship if we can't even qualify for WWC"? ). I wanted to ask a pair other questions instead; if anyone can answer I will be very grateful: 1) why the Women's Asian Cup, that used to be a biannual event, became quadriannual? (Well, at least I guess its' like that: I don't think they simply skipped 2012 edition: from now on it will always be each 4 yours, isn't it? ). Is it to match males' Asian Cup (and other international tournaments)? Is it because in the years when it didn't qualify for World Cup there was less interest in it? And is there a special reason why the change was made exactly after edition 2010? 2) It's been said that this tournament will qualify teams for WWC 2015 (and I guess in Canada there should be 24 teams, and so 5 spots for Asia). Does anyone know if Japan is already automatically qualified as World Champions or if it will have to qualify like any other team? Edit: oh sorry, about North Korea, reading the Wikipedia entry about 2014 Asian Cup was enough:
in the article, it also states that AFC has been given 5 qualifying births to the 2015 WWC. also, to make the qualifying groups even, Hong Kong should be given an automatic birth in the finals and have the finals be 10 teams(or even 12). based on rankings, the qualifying groups should be divided as follows: GROUP A: Thailand, Hong Kong, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait GROUP B: Vietnam, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh GROUP C: Uzbekistan, Iran, India, Phillippines GROUP D: Myanmar, Taiwan, Indonesia, Bahrain
I don't think having more than 10 teams at the finals would help. Hong Kong, Jordan and Iran are too weak to play against the likes of Japan (10-0 or 12-0 scorelines are not really nice at a finals tournament). At least Thailand, Vietnam, maybe Myanmar can keep the scores down to 4 or 5. It would be odd not to have the hosts qualify automatically, though, but I really think Hong Kong are too weak right now to be given an automatic berth. They will host the East Asian Championship qualifiers next month - this will give an idea of their strength at home, as they will play China, Australia and Taiwan. I expect they may lose quite heavily to both China and Australia.
Group A: Uzbekistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait. Group B: Thailand, Iran, Philippines, Bangladesh. Group C: Vietnam, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain. Group D: Myanmar, Chinese Taipei, Palestine, India. Matches in May 2013. Jordan and Uzbekistan should fight it out in Group A Thailand should be too strong in Group B Vietnam should win Group C Myanmar and Taiwan will challenge in Group D