2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship qualification

2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship qualification
Tournament details
Host countries	First round:; Sri Lanka (Group A); Mongolia (Group B); Tajikistan (Group C); Kyrgyzstan (Group D); Nepal (Group E); Bangladesh (Group F); Second round:; Laos (Group A); Myanmar (Group B)
Dates	First round:; 15–23 September 2018; Second round:; 27 February – 7 March 2019
Teams	30 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	8 (in 8 host cities)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	68
Goals scored	397 (5.84 per match)
Attendance	32,890 (484 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Shao Ziqin (16 goals)

The 2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship qualification is a women's under-16 football competition which decides the participating teams of the 2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship.

A total of eight teams qualify to play in the final tournament held in Thailand,[1] four of which are decided by qualification.

Teams

Of the 47 AFC member associations, a total of 33 teams entered the competition, with North Korea, South Korea, and Japan, automatically qualified for the final tournament by their position as the top three teams of the 2017 AFC U-16 Women's Championship and thus not participating in qualification. The final tournament hosts Thailand, despite having automatically qualified for the final tournament, entered to participate in qualification. As a result, a total of 30 teams entered qualification. Due to the increased number of teams, two qualification rounds were scheduled for the first time.[2]

The draw for the first round of the qualifiers was held on 30 May 2018, 15:00 MYT (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[3] For the first round, the 30 teams were drawn into six groups of five teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2017 AFC U-16 Women's Championship final tournament and qualification. The following restrictions were also applied:[4]

The six teams which indicated their intention to serve as qualification group hosts prior to the draw were drawn into separate groups.

Top 3 (not participating in qualification)
North Korea South Korea Japan

Participating in qualification first round
Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5 (unranked)
China PR Thailand (Q) Australia Bangladesh (H) Laos Philippines	Chinese Taipei Vietnam Myanmar Iran India Uzbekistan	Jordan United Arab Emirates Hong Kong Malaysia Kyrgyzstan (H) Northern Mariana Islands	Guam Palestine Singapore	Bahrain Indonesia Lebanon Mongolia (H) Nepal (H) Pakistan Sri Lanka (H) Syria (W) Tajikistan (H)

Notes

Teams in bold automatically qualified for the final tournament.
Teams in italics advanced to second round.
(H): Qualification first round group hosts
(Q): Automatically qualified for final tournament regardless of first round qualification results, and did not advance to second round
(W): Withdrew after draw

Did not enter

Afghanistan
Bhutan
Brunei
Cambodia
Iraq
Kuwait
Macau
Maldives
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Timor-Leste
Turkmenistan
Yemen

Player eligibility

Players born between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2005 are eligible to compete in the tournament.[5]

Format

In each group, teams play each other once at a centralised venue.

In the first round, the six group winners and the two best runners-up advance to the second round. However, the final tournament hosts Thailand do not advance to the second round. If they win their group, the runner-up of their group advances to the second round, or if they are among the two best runners-up, the third best runner-up advances to the second round.
In the second round, the two group winners and the two group runners-up qualify for the final tournament to join the four automatically qualified teams.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (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):[5]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference 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 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.

First round

The first round was played between 15 and 23 September 2018.[6]

Group A

All matches were held in Sri Lanka.
Times listed are UTC+5:30.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	China PR	4	4	0	0	54	0	+54	12	Second round
2	Jordan	4	2	1	1	16	9	+7	7
3	Uzbekistan	4	2	1	1	7	9	−2	7
4	Guam	4	1	0	3	5	34	−29	3
5	Sri Lanka (H)	4	0	0	4	2	32	−30	0

Source: AFC
Rules for classification: Qualification tiebreakers
(H) Host

15 September 2018

11:00

Jordan	0–0	Uzbekistan
	Report

CR & FC Grounds, Colombo

Attendance: 50

Referee: Yoshimi Yamashita (Japan)

15 September 2018

15:00

Sri Lanka	2–4	Guam
Kirushanthini 45+1', 67'	Report	Han 10' Riley 19', 54' Teria 64'

CR & FC Grounds, Colombo

Attendance: 150

Referee: Bùi Thị Thu Trang (Vietnam)

17 September 2018