AFC Nations Cup 2023 qualification simulations (May 2022)

The qualification for the AFC Nations Cup 2023 is divided in two parts:

• the Asian first and second stage in the qualification for the World Cup 2022 delivered 12 teams: the 8 group winners and the 4 best group runners-up (excluding host China) of the second group stage qualify. China was one of the four best runners-up;
• the rest of the teams entered the separate qualification path for the remaining 11 berths in the 24-team AFC Nations Cup 2023: two play-offs in October 2021 to wittle the remaining teams down to 24 and a group stage with 6 groups of 4 teams. The 6 group winners and the 5 best group runners-up qualify.

China is as host, although they of course participated in the World Cup qualification, automatically qualified for the continental final. From the WC qualification part the 8 group winners qualified (Syria, Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Korea Republic) together with the 4 best runners-up (Oman, Iraq, Vietnam and Lebanon).

The final qualification group stage is, due to the ongoing COVID-19 measures in Asia, reduced to a single round-robin group stage with only 3 matches per team in centralised venues. These matches will be played this June window.

By the way: on May 14th 2022, the AFC announced that China would not be able to host the continental showpiece tournament in June 2023, due to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and China's Zero-COVID policy.

Here are the probabilities (in %) -generated over 10.000 simulations- with all match-results based on NT prediction formula's for goals scored in a match depending on elo win expectancy.

The group results with teams ordered by average group position. Hosts of the six centralised groups are indicated with (H):

group A	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Jordan	59,07	32,30	8,42	0,21
Kuwait (H)	35,24	47,06	16,17	1,53
Indonesia	5,61	19,26	57,88	17,25
Nepal	0,08	1,38	17,53	81,01
group B	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Palestine	73,99	19,13	5,80	1,08
Yemen	14,89	46,10	28,25	10,76
Philippines	9,75	26,61	43,42	20,22
Mongolia (H)	1,37	8,16	22,53	67,94
group C	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Uzbekistan (H)	74,82	24,86	0,32	0,00
Thailand	25,14	70,42	4,37	0,07
Maldives	0,04	4,38	65,04	30,54
Sri Lanka	0,00	0,34	30,27	69,39
group D	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
India (H)	56,59	28,29	12,74	2,38
Hong Kong	21,68	32,38	37,36	8,58
Afghanistan	20,84	34,50	31,94	12,72
Cambodia	0,89	4,83	17,96	76,32
group E	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bahrain	65,54	24,81	9,35	0,30
Turkmenistan	19,16	38,36	38,65	3,83
Malaysia (H)	15,23	36,07	42,64	6,06
Bangladesh	0,07	0,76	9,36	89,81
group F	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Kyrgyzstan (H)	50,56	33,79	12,80	2,85
Tajikistan	37,61	37,43	18,31	6,65
Singapore	10,00	21,40	45,64	22,96
Myanmar	1,83	7,38	23,25	67,54

The probabilities to qualify for the AFC Nations Cup 2023, as group winner (column nr1) or as one of the 5 best runners-up (column nr2_q). Teams are ordered by their total qualification probability:

team	nr 1	nr2_q	total
Uzbekistan	74,82	24,75	99,57
Thailand	25,14	69,42	94,56
Palestine	73,99	16,71	90,70
Jordan	59,07	30,91	89,98
Bahrain	65,54	23,75	89,29
India	56,59	24,75	81,34
Kyrgyzstan	50,56	30,02	80,58
Kuwait	35,24	43,16	78,40
Tajikistan	37,61	29,53	67,14
Turkmenistan	19,16	31,77	50,93
Hong Kong	21,68	25,92	47,60
-----------------------
Yemen	14,89	32,16	47,05
Afghanistan	20,84	25,64	46,48
Malaysia	15,23	30,93	46,16
Philippines	9,75	18,07	27,82
Singapore	10,00	15,23	25,23
Indonesia	5,61	14,15	19,76
Myanmar	1,83	3,69	5,52
Mongolia	1,37	4,13	5,50
Cambodia	0,89	2,24	3,13
Maldives	0,04	2,18	2,22
Nepal	0,08	0,48	0,56
Bangladesh	0,07	0,23	0,30
Sri Lanka	0,00	0,18	0,18

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