The 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 19th edition of the AFC Women's Asian Cup, the quadrennial international

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament in Asia competed by the women's national teams in the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC). It was originally scheduled to be held in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

between 7 and 22 April 2018, but later was changed to 6 to 20 April 2018. The tournament served as the final stage of Asian

qualification Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

for the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football, football championship contested by 24 List of women's national association football teams, women's ...

, with the top five teams qualifying for the World Cup in France.

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

defeated

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

1–0 in the final to win their second consecutive title. In the third-place match the same day, China PR defeated

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

3–1.

Qualification

The draw for the qualifiers was held on 21 January 2017. The top three finishers of the last AFC Women's Cup qualified automatically and did not have to enter qualifying, while Jordan also qualified automatically as hosts but decided to also participate in the qualifying competition. The matches were played from 3 to 12 April 2017.

Qualified teams

The following eight teams qualified for the tournament.

Venues

The competition was played in two venues in the city of

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

Draw

The final draw was held on 9 December 2017, 13:00 EET (

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...

), at the King Hussein bin Talal Convention Center on the eastern shores of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the

2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup The 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup, the 18th edition of the competition, was a women's association football tournament competed by national teams in Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It served as the qualification for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup ...

final tournament and

, with the hosts Jordan automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Squads

Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 31.4 and 31.5).

Match officials

A total of 10 referees and 12 assistant referees were appointed for the final tournament. ;Referees * Kate Jacewicz * Casey Reibelt * Qin Liang * Mahsa Ghorbani * Yoshimi Yamashita *

Ri Hyang-ok Ri Hyang-ok (; born 18 December 1977) is a North Korean association football referee and former footballer. She played as a midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, ...

* Oh Hyeon-jeong * Thein Thein Aye * Edita Mirabidova * Công Thị Dung ;Assistant referees * Cui Yongmei * Fang Yan * Uvena Fernandes * Ensieh Khabaz * Maiko Hagio * Naomi Teshirogi * Hong Kum-nyo * Kim Kyoung-min * Lee Seul-gi * Heba Saadieh * Rohaidah Bte Mohd Nasir * Trương Thị Lệ Trinh

Group stage

The top two teams of each group qualified for the

as well as the semi-finals. The third-placed team of each group entered the fifth-placed match. ;Tiebreakers Teams are ranked according to

points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

(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 11.5): #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

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 The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

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. All times are local, EEST ( UTC+3).

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

In the knockout stage,

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

and

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where

(no

) is used to decide the winner if necessary.

Bracket

Fifth place match

Winner qualified for

Semi-finals

----

Third place match

Final

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Goalscorers

Qualified teams for FIFA Women's World Cup

The following five teams from AFC qualified for the

. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

² Australia qualified as a member of the OFC in 1995, 1999 and 2003.

Broadcasting rights and sponsorships

Le Sports acquired the all-media broadcasting and signal production rights in China in 2015, but they collapsed due to financial problems thus giving in all the rights they've acquired and transferred them to

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is the State media, national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV is operated by the National Radio and Television Administration which reports directly to the Publicity Department of th ...

and PP Sports in 2017. Tire manufacturer Continental announced they would be official sponsor.

References

External links

* *, the-AFC.com
AFC Women's Asian Cup 2018
stats.the-AFC.com