MUSCAT, OCT 25
The draw ceremony for the 2023 Asian Youth Cup will take place on Wednesday in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
The tournament witnesses the participation of 16 teams that qualified after an exciting qualifying campaign, the finals will be held from March 1 to 18.
The draw will divide the 16 participating teams into four groups, with each group including four teams, the top two teams from each group will qualify for the quarterfinals.
According to the draw system, the host Uzbekistan team came at the top of the rankings, the rest teams will consider the results of the last edition of the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship in Indonesia.
The first level in the classification includes, along with Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, the winner of the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship, and South Korea the runner-up, and Qatar, the winner of the 2014 edition.
The second level includes Japan, the 2016 champions, Tajikistan, Australia and Indonesia, which qualified for the quarterfinals in the 2018 edition.
The third level includes Jordan and China, who won the title four times before, and Iraq, in addition to Vietnam, who reached the semifinals in the 2016 edition.
Sultanate of Oman are in the fourth level, along with Iran, seeking to win the championship title for the first time in 47 years, along with Syria and Kyrgyzstan, which return to the finals after an absence of 17 years.
It is noteworthy that the top four teams in the tournament will get qualifying tickets for the Fifa U-20 World Cup 2023, which will be held in Indonesia from May 20 to June 11, 2023.
Oman national U-19 team played in the Group 7 qualifiers held in September in Salalah. The other teams in the group included Thailand, the Philippines and Afghanistan.
Oman team: Ayman al Nabhani, Salem al Abri, Nawaf al Futaisi, Saeed al Adawi, Salem al Shamakhi, Luqman al Jadidi, Osama al Rawahi, Osama al Mahrouqi, Al Muntasir al Maawali, Jawad al Ezri, Salem al Abdali, Saeed al Ghanbosi, Mamoun al Araimi and Abdul Alim al Rawahi.
