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Asian Cup – Qatar 2011 Qualification Tournament

The main part of the qualifying tournament for the 2011 Asian Cup began with a preliminary round tie in April 2008 and is scheduled to finish in March 2010. The first, second and third placed teams from the previous Asian Cup tournament in 2007 (Iraq, Saudi Arabia and South Korea respectively) qualified automatically for the finals this time around, along with hosts Qatar. The remainder of the 46 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) members had to compete in the qualifying tournaments. 

The 24 highest ranked teams were eligible for the main qualifying tournament although North Korea, Myanmar and Turkmenistan withdrew. This left 21 entrants to be reduced to 20 by means of a two-legged play-off tie between the two lowest ranked teams – Lebanon and the Maldives. The 20 teams were then drawn into five groups of four to play the other teams in their group twice each on a home and away basis. The top two from each group will qualify for the finals. NB: India subsequently withdrew from Group C following their qualification via the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup. 

The remaining, lowest ranked, Asian teams had to battle it out for the remaining two places in the finals by attempting to win the biannual AFC Challenge Cup competition in either 2008 or 2010. This is a tournament for the so-called ‘emerging nations’, the lowest ranked AFC members. Sixteen teams played in the qualifiers for the 2008 edition and the eight team final tournament was played in India and won by the hosts, who beat Tajikistan 4-1 in the final. Qualifying for the 2010 edition is in March and April 2009 and the finals will take place in India in July and August 2010. If India retain their title then the 2010 runners-up will qualify for the 2011 Asian Cup.