U23 Vietnam entered the number 1 seed group in the 2026 U23 Asian qualifiers

TPO - The fact that U23 Vietnam is one of the hosts and is in the highest seed group promises to create a big advantage in the journey to win a ticket to the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has just announced plans to hold the draw ceremony for the qualifying round of the 2026 AFC U23 Championship. The ceremony will take place at 2:00 p.m. (Vietnam time) on May 29, 2025 at the AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This year's tournament brings together 44 national U23 teams, divided into 11 groups. The groups will compete in a round-robin format at a centralized location, taking place from September 1 to September 9.

The 11 group winners and the four best runners-up will qualify for the finals, to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2026. The host team will be given a special ticket to the finals without having to compete in the qualifying round.

Notably, the Vietnam U23 team is ranked in the number 1 seed group, including 11 teams with the best cumulative achievements over the last three U23 Asian tournaments (2020, 2022, 2024).

The most recent achievement of reaching the quarter-finals of the 2024 AFC U23 Championship (stopping against Iraq U23 with a score of 0-1) has helped Vietnam U23 maintain its position in the top 5 of Asia (after Uzbekistan, Japan, Iraq and Korea) in the AFC ranking system.

The draw mechanism is conducted according to the principle: teams are divided into 4 seeding groups based on the scoring system approved by AFC.

In addition, the 11 host nations are placed in a separate pot and drawn in advance to ensure that each host is in a different group. The host teams will be allocated to positions in the group corresponding to their seeding.

In addition to Vietnam, the 10 countries hosting the qualifying round include Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Qatar, Tajikistan, Thailand and UAE.

List of 4 seed groups (in order of ranking):

Group 1: Uzbekistan, Japan, Iraq, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Qatar, Thailand, Jordan, Tajikistan, UAE

Group 2: Indonesia, Kuwait, Iran, Turkmenistan, Malaysia, China, Bahrain, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Cambodia

Group 3: Myanmar, Oman, Singapore, Kyrgyzstan, India, Lebanon, Laos, Timor Leste, Chinese Taipei, Philippines, Hong Kong (China)

Group 4: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Guam, Pakistan, Macau, Nepal, Brunei, Bhutan, Northern Mariana Islands

Trong Dat

Source: https://tienphong.vn/u23-viet-nam-vao-nhom-hat-giong-so-1-tai-vong-loai-u23-chau-a-2026-post1739460.tpo