KATHMANDU, Jan 24: Nepal has been drawn in the group F along Yemen, Tajikistan and the Philippines in AFC Asian Cup 2019 Qualifiers. The draw of the tournament that will see the participation of the 24 countries was held in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
The group matches of the competition will be played on the round robin league in home and away format and Nepal will kick off the campaign from March 28 taking on the Philippines in away match. However, the full schedule of the matches that Nepal will play is yet to be made public.
Nepal was given a chance to play the qualifiers in the capacity of AFC Solidarity Cup winner as the replacement of Guam that withdrew the participation citing internal reasons.
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AFC has divided the 24 countries into six groups and winner and runner-up from each group will join other 12 countries that have already qualified for the final rounds of the tournament to be held in UAE from January 5 to February 1 in 2019.
South Asian nation India is pitted in group A alongside Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and AFC Solidarity Cup runner-up Macau while the group B consists DPR Korea, Hong Kong, Lebanon and Malaysia. Similarly the group C includes Jordan, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Cambodia while the other South Asian nations Maldives and Bhutan are drawn in the group D alongside Oman and Palestine. Likewise, Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Chinese Taipei and Singapore are in Group E.
Defending champions Australia, China, Iraq, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan and hosts United Arab Emirates are the teams who have already qualified for the tournament.
