Stage set for AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 draw: Iran

AFC – MANAMA, The sixteen nations set to compete at October’s AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 will learn their opponents on Saturday (7pm local time) during the competition’s official final draw in the Bahraini capital of Manama.

The teams looking to emulate Qatar’s 2014 triumph are hosts Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea Republic, China, Japan, Tajikistan, Australia, Thailand, DPR Korea and Yemen.

The seedings for the draw are based on the rankings from the previous edition, Myanmar 2014, with Bahrain, as the host nation, named the top-seeded country.

The 16 teams will be divided into four groups and each group will play a one-round league, from which the top two teams in each group (eight teams in total) will qualify for the knockout stage (quarter-finals).

The four winners of the quarter-finals will qualify for the semi-finals and the winners of semi-finals will advance to the final.

The Championship’s top four ranked teams will then fly the Asian flag at the FIFA U-20 World Cup Korea Republic 2017.

If Korea Republic finish among the Championship’s top four teams, three play-off matches will be organised among the four losing teams of the quarter-finals to determine the fifth placed team that will qualify for Korea Republic 2017.

The draw will be made from the four pots as follows:

Pot 1: Bahrain, Qatar, DPR Korea, Uzbekistan (teams ranked 1st to 4th)

Pot 2: Japan, Thailand, UAE, China (teams ranked 5th to 8th)

Pot 3: Australia, Iraq, Korea Republic, Yemen (teams ranked 9th to 12th)

Pot 4: Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan (teams ranked 13th to 16th)

IR IRAN

Qualified as: Group E winners
Appearance: 20th
Best performance: Champions (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Last time out: Eliminated in group stage (4th in Group A with three points, one behind second-placed Myanmar and third-placed Yemen)

Despite being one of Asia’s traditional giants, IR Iran have not won the U-19 Championship since claiming four consecutive titles from 1973 to 1976.

They did however, have no problems qualifying for this year’s edition as winners of Group E with a 100 per cent record, and will be determined to do better than two years ago when they were eliminated in the group stage after finishing behind Thailand, Myanmar and Yemen.

IR Iran’s senior side have enjoyed some excellent results recently and have strengthened their grip on being the continent’s number one side in the FIFA world rankings, and the pressure will now be on the U-19s to back that up.

The AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 will begin on October 13 with the final set to be played on October 30.