The play-off round of the

2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification The 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification was the qualification process organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to determine the participating teams for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, the 17th edition of the international men's football champions ...

was played from 2 June to 11 October 2016.

Format

A total of 11 teams (the four lowest-ranked fourth-placed teams and the seven fifth-placed teams of the Asian Cup qualifying second round) competed in the play-off round. Originally, 12 teams were supposed to compete, but there were only seven instead of eight fifth-placed teams after

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

were disqualified due to FIFA suspension. The play-off round consisted of two rounds of home-and-away two-legged play-off matches to determine the final eight qualifiers for the Asian Cup qualifying third round: *Round 1: The ten highest-seeded teams were drawn into five ties. The five winners advanced to the Asian Cup qualifying third round, while the five losers entered Round 2. *Round 2: The six teams (the lowest-seeded team and the five Round 1 losers) were drawn into three ties. The three winners advanced to the Asian Cup qualifying third round, while the three losers were eligible to enter the AFC Solidarity Cup. The five Round 1 winners and three Round 2 winners joined the 16 teams which advanced directly from the Asian Cup qualifying second round to the third round, to compete for the final 12 slots in the

2019 AFC Asian Cup The 2019 AFC Asian Cup (or commonly called the Asian Cup 2019) was the 17th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, the quadrennial international association football, football championship of Asia organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) ...

. The three Round 2 losers joined the six teams which lost in the Asian Cup qualifying first round, to compete for the

2016 AFC Solidarity Cup The 2016 AFC Solidarity Cup was the inaugural and only edition of the AFC Solidarity Cup, an international association football, football tournament. It took place between 2–15 November 2016 in Malaysia. The tournament was created by the Asian ...

Qualified teams

Seeding

The draw for the play-off round was held on 7 April 2016, 15:00 MYT (

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 AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

. The teams were seeded based on their results in the Asian Cup qualifying second round. In Round 1, each tie contained a team from Pot 1 and a team from Pot 2, with the team from Pot 1 hosting the first leg. In Round 2, there were no seeding. As the draw was held before Round 1 was played, the identities of the Round 1 losers were not known at the time of the draw.

Matches

Each tie was played on a home-and-away

two-legged In sports (especially association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum of ...

basis. The

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

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 ...

(away goals do not apply in extra time) 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 ...

were used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Article 10.3).

Round 1

The first legs were played on 2 June, and the second legs were played on 6–7 June 2016.

Note: Timor-Leste were ordered by the AFC to forfeit both matches against Malaysia due to the use of falsified documents for their players. Both matches originally ended as 3–0 wins to Malaysia.

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

won 4–2 on aggregate and advanced to the Asian Cup qualifying third round.

Chinese Taipei "Chinese Taipei" is the term used in various international organizations and tournaments for groups or delegations representing the Republic of China (ROC), a country commonly known as Taiwan. Due to the One China principle stipulated by the ...

entered