Vietnamese football-lovers will have a chance to directly cheer the national U23 team at the 2020 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Championship qualifier as the country was recently trusted to host marches of the group that the team will be in.

Men of U23 Vietnam team

The qualifying round will gather 44 U23 teams across Asia, including 24 teams from West Asia and the remaining from East Asia. They will be divided into 11 groups, including Groups A,B, C, D, E, F for the teams from West Asia, and Groups G, J, I, J, K for the remaining.

As the first runner-up of the 2018 AFC U23 Championship, Vietnam ranks first among five seeded teams in the East Asian region, including Vietnam, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Japan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

AFC named host countries for qualifying matches: namely Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain and Kuwait for groups in West Asia, ad Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Mongolia for groups in East Asia.

The qualifier will choose 16 teams to the final round, including the host of the final round and 15 most outstanding teams.

The qualifier is scheduled to take place from March 22-26, 2019, while the final round from January 8-26, 2020. To day, the host country for the round has yet to be defined.

The draw for the qualifier will be held on November 7 at AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.-VNA