The AFC\n(Asian Football Confederation) Asian Cup 2019 football tournament has kicked\noff in the United Arab Emirates. Twenty-four teams feature in the competition,\nincluding India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year\nmarks the 17th<\/sup> edition of the Asian Cup 2019 football tournament has\ngot underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Organised\nby the AFC, the 18-day long major competition, which takes place from 5th<\/sup>\nJanuary until 1st<\/sup> February 2019, is important for teams from Asia and\nOceania. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a\nonce in four years International men\u2019s football event which allows the sport to\ndevelop, especially in a continent with a large population of football fans. In\nthe competition there is a total of twenty-four teams that are participating\nthis year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the\nteams participating are ranked low in the FIFA rankings, teams like South Korea\nhave previously done well in World Cups. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n There a\nseveral top-class footballers who have the potential to become star champions\nof the Asian Cup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the\ntournament there is six groups featuring four teams, playing initially under a\nround-robin format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The top two\nteams, along with the four best third places sides will reach the knockout\nstages, commencing with the last 16 round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Subsequently,\nteams will qualify for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final itself. Eight\ndifferent grounds in four cities of the UAE will stage the matches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are\nthe size groups, including the prospects of the teams, along with highlighting\nsome of the big players:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Group A\nincludes UAE, Thailand, Bahrain and India which is a growing football nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though\nIndia has struggled over the years, they did have a stretch of good results in\n2018. For example, holing China to a 0-0 friendly draw in October 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n UAE are the\nhost team and are the favorites to win from this group as they have a home\nadvantage with the crowd on their side and are familiar with the conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thailand\ndoes also have a good change has they have a few good players coming through\nthe ranks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Group B\nincludes Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Australia who are the favorites from this\nGroup. They are also defending champions, having won the tournament in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Group C\nincludes South Korea, China PR, Philippines and Krgyzstan with South Korea\nbeing the favorite as their captain Son Heung-min from Tottenham Hotspur who\ncould be the star player of the competition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n China\nanother growing football team side who this year have a good mix of experience\nand youth in their side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is\nPhilippines first time that they have made it to the Asian Cup with their\npeople being passionate about the sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Group D\nincludes former winners Iran and Iraq, to complete this group there is also\nVietnam and Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Group E\nincludes Qatar, Lebanon, North Korea and Saudi Arabia as multiple champions of\nthis tournament lifting the trophy in 1984, 1988 and 1996. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan are\ntraditionally a strong team will dominate Group F whoever the other teams\ninclude Uzbekistan, Oman and Turkmenistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a\ngreat tournament for FIFA to spread the word of football and encourage the game\nwithin different regions. We look forward to see the outcome of the tournament\nas there is a lot of brilliant teams taking part this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Asian Cup 2019 football tournament has kicked off in the United Arab Emirates. Twenty-four teams feature in the competition, including India. This year marks the 17th edition of the Asian Cup 2019 football tournament has got underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Organised by the AFC, the 18-day long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,27,112],"tags":[1814,1815,1816],"class_list":["post-27989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-sport","category-top-stories","tag-asian-cup-2019","tag-asian-football-confederation","tag-united-arab-emirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}