On the afternoon of May 22, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced the seed groups in the qualifying round of the 2024 AFC U23 Championship.
U23 Vietnam is in the number 1 seed group in the 2024 U23 Asian qualifiers
Accordingly, due to reaching the quarterfinals of the 2022 AFC U23 Championship, U23 Vietnam is ranked in the number 1 seed group with Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Japan, Australia, Iraq, Turkmenistan, South Korea, Thailand, Jordan and UAE.
Group 2 includes Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Tajikistan, Bahrain, Myanmar, Cambodia, Syria, India, Singapore, Indonesia.
Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, Yemen, East Timor, Taiwan, Lebanon, Laos, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Maldives and Oman are in group 3.
The final group includes Mongolia, Philippines, Afghanistan, Brunei, China, DPRK, Guam, Macau, Pakistan and Qatar.
According to AFC's grouping rules, teams from the same region but different seed groups will be given priority to be placed in the same group to avoid having to travel far.
This means that U23 Vietnam will avoid very strong teams in other seed groups such as Oman, Iran or Qatar.
Next, countries that are geographically close to Vietnam such as Thailand, Indonesia or China are all in the group of hosts hosting the matches so there is no chance of them meeting each other.
With what is happening, U23 Vietnam is very likely to be in a group with soft opponents such as Myanmar, Cambodia (group 2), East Timor, Laos (group 3) or Philippines, Brunei (group 4).
As planned, the draw ceremony for the 2023 AFC U23 qualifiers will take place at 2:00 p.m. on May 25 at the headquarters of the Asian football body in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
At this stage, 4 teams will be divided into a group, competing in a round robin to calculate points.
The 11 group winners and the four best runners-up will qualify for the 2024 AFC U23 Championship in Qatar next year. The tournament will also serve as a qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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