{"id":30035,"date":"2017-12-11T13:12:13","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T21:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=30035"},"modified":"2017-12-11T13:12:13","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T21:12:13","slug":"afc-futsal-championships-2018-enticing-draw-awaits-asias-finest-futsal-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/12\/11\/afc-futsal-championships-2018-enticing-draw-awaits-asias-finest-futsal-sides\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Futsal Championships 2018: Enticing draw awaits Asia&#8217;s finest futsal sides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, <strong>Asia\u2019s best teams will learn their fate at the AFC Futsal Championship 2018 draw which will take place in Chinese Taipei on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>11-time champions Islamic Republic will return to defend their title after remaining unbeaten in Group B of qualifying for the South and Central Zones. They booked their berth alongside Tajikistan who held their nerve to confirm a ninth appearance as group runners-up.<\/p>\n<p>Like Iran, Uzbekistan went unbeaten throughout the qualifiers, scoring 22 goals and conceding only six to win Group A. Kyrgyz Republic sealed second place.<\/p>\n<p>In the ASEAN Zone, Vietnam and Thailand topped their groups, while Malaysia and Myanmar finished second to progress to the regional semi-finals and, as a result, the 2018 AFC Futsal Championship.<\/p>\n<p>As three-time AFC Futsal Championship winners, Japan are also one of the competition&#8217;s heavyweights. They qualified with ease from the East Zone, scoring 24 goals and conceding only two to finish top of Group A.<\/p>\n<p>After failing to qualify in 2016, Korea Republic will return to the tournament after pipping China PR to top spot in Group B.<\/p>\n<p>China, however, duly beat Chinese Taipei on penalties in the East Zone&#8217;s Play-off to secure their ticket to the AFC Futsal Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese Taipei qualified automatically as hosts.<\/p>\n<p>The West Zone teams were forced to endure a tense qualifying campaign, with the successful quartet &#8211; Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan &#8211; only making the cut on the final day. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Draw<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>16 teams will be drawn into four groups of four teams, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the quarter-finals. The first matches are set be played on February 1, 2018, with the final set for February 11.<\/p>\n<p><strong>POT 1: Chinese Taipei (Hosts), Iran, Uzbekistan, Thailand<\/strong><br \/>\nPOT 2: Vietnam, Kyrgyz Republic, Japan, Iraq<br \/>\nPOT 3: China, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Jordan<br \/>\nPOT 4: Malaysia, Bahrain, Korea Republic, Myanmar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, Asia\u2019s best teams will learn their fate at the AFC Futsal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":30036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,88,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c15-futsal","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":973,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}