The 2018 AFC U-23 Championship (also known as the 2018 AFC U-23 Asian Cup) was the third edition of the AFC U-23 Championship, the biennial international age-restricted

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

championship organised by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC) for the men's under-23 national teams of Asia. A total of 16 teams competed in the tournament. It took place between 9–27 January 2018, and was hosted by

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

defeated

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

in the final to win their first title.

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

were the defending champions, but failed to defend the title after losing to Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals.

Hosts selection

Qualification

The qualifiers were held from 15 to 23 July 2017. China also participated in the qualifiers, even though they had already qualified automatically as hosts.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.

Venues

The competition was played in four venues in four cities, all in the province of

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 24 October 2017, 16:00 CST (

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. It is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a possible candidate for ASEAN Common Time, mainly due to China's large population, with an estimated population ...

), at the Traders Fudu Hotel in

Changzhou Changzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu, China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling, and Jinling. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Zhen ...

. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the

2016 AFC U-23 Championship The 2016 AFC U-23 Championship (also known as the 2016 AFC U-23 Asian Cup) was the second edition of the AFC U-23 Championship, the biennial international age-restricted association football, football championship organised by the Asian Football ...

final tournament and

qualification Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

, with the hosts China automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Match officials

The following referees were chosen for the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship. Additional assistant referees were used in this tournament. ;Referees * Chris Beath * Peter Green * Nawaf Shukralla * Fu Ming * Ma Ning * Liu Kwok Man * Alireza Faghani * Ali Sabah * Mohanad Qasim Eesee Sarray * Ryuji Sato * Jumpei Iida * Adham Makhadmeh * Kim Dong-jin * Ko Hyung-jin * Ahmed Al-Kaf * Abdulrahman Al-Jassim * Khamis Al-Marri * Fahad Al-Mirdasi * Turki Al-Khudhayr * Muhammad Taqi * Hettikamkanamge Perera * Mohammed Abdulla Hassan Mohamed * Ravshan Irmatov * Valentin Kovalenko ;Assistant referees * Matthew Cream * Ebrahim Saleh * Yaser Tulefat * Cao Yi * Huo Weiming * Mohammadreza Mansouri * Reza Sokhandan * Yagi Akane * Toru Sagara * Ahmad Al-Roalle * Yoon Kwang-yeol * Sergei Grishchenko * Mohd Yusri Mohamad * Abu Bakar Al-Amri * Saud Al-Maqaleh * Taleb Al-Marri * Mohammed Al-Abakry * Abdullah Al-Shalawi * Ronnie Koh Min Kiat * Palitha Hemathunga * Mohamed Al-Hammadi * Hasan Al-Mahri * Abdukhamidullo Rasulov * Jakhongir Saidov ;Support referees *

Minoru Tōjō is a Japanese association football Referee (association football), referee who currently officiates in the J-League, and J. League Division 2, Div. 2. Since 2007 he has been an international referee. Career Since becoming a professional referee ...

* Ilgiz Tantashev ;Support assistant referees * Ahmad Ali * Nguyễn Trung Hậu

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 1995 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 24.1 and 24.2).

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals. ;Tiebreakers Teams are ranked according to

points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

(3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 9.3): #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; #Goal difference in all group matches; #Goals scored in all group matches; #

Penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group; #Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points); #Drawing of lots. All times are local, CST (

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

In the knockout stage,

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

and

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

are used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Articles 12.1 and 12.2).

Bracket

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Third place match

Final

This was the first time ever that Vietnam and Uzbekistan met together in final. For Vietnam, this was their first appearance in an AFC final at any level.

Winners

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Statistics

Goalscorers

Broadcasting rights

*: beIN Sports (MENA), Alkaas Sports Channels *: Fox Sports Australia *:

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

, PPTV, Guangdong Sports *: Fox Sports Asia *: JTBC3 Fox Sports *: VTV (shared by Fox Sports Asia)

Notes

References

External links

*, the-AFC.com
AFC U-23 Championship 2018
stats.the-AFC.com {{DEFAULTSORT:AFC U-23 Championship 2018

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

U-23 Championship U-23 Championship 2018 in Chinese football International association football competitions hosted by China January 2018 sports events in China