Southeast Asian football teams slip in second round of Asian Games

Thailand (in blue) play South Korea in Asian Games on September 21, 2023. Photo by FAT

In the early game on Thursday, Indonesia had a shocking defeat against Taiwan and put themselves in a tough situation.

Meanwhile, Vietnam lost to Iran, Myanmar got slammed by China and Thailand crumbled under South Korea. All three games took place at the same time and had the same script: the winner totally dominated their opponent and scored freely.

All four Southeast Asian teams are third in their group after the second round and their chances of advancing still remains as the four best third-placed teams will get past the group stage.

The ranking teams in third place will be calculated based on their result with the top two teams of each group. Since there is a group that does not have four teams, the head-to-head result with the last-placed teams will not be counted.

Among the best third-placed teams, Thailand are leading with one point and a goal difference of -4. Behind them are Indonesia with 0 points and a goal difference of -1 and Qatar (0 and -2). Both having 0 points and a goal difference of -4 are Myanmar and Vietnam, but the latter rank higher due to having a better fair-play index. After two matches, Vietnam have received four yellow cards, one fewer than Myanmar.

The ranking of the third-placed teams will change after the final group stage matches, which will take place on September 24 and 25.

After the second round, two more teams advanced to the next stage: hosts China in group A and defending champion South Korea in group E.

Before the tournament, Syria and Afghanistan withdrew from group C, leaving Uzbekistan and Hong Kong to automatically enter the next round.