The men's football tournament at the 2018 Asian Games was held from 10 August to 1 September 2018.[1][2] It was the 17th edition of the men's tournament. In this tournament, 25 teams played in the men's competition. South Korea were the gold medal holders when they won the tournament in 2014.[3][4] They managed to retain their title.
Competition schedule
The match schedule of the men's tournament was unveiled on 15 February 2018.[1]
G
Group stage
⅛
Round of 16
¼
Quarter-finals
½
Semi-finals
B
Bronze medal match
F
Gold medal match
Fri 10
Sat 11
Sun 12
Mon 13
Tue 14
Wed 15
Thu 16
Fri 17
Sat 18
Sun 19
Mon 20
Tue 21
Wed 22
Thu 23
Fri 24
Sat 25
Sun 26
Mon 27
Tue 28
Wed 29
Thu 30
Fri 31
Sat 1
G
G
G
G
⅛
¼
½
B
F
Venues
The tournament was held in four venues across four cities.[1]
Each nation must submit a squad of 20 players, 17 of whom must be born on or after 1 January 1995, and three of whom can be older dispensation players.
Draw
The draw for the tournament was held on 5 July 2018 with initially 24 teams involved. The teams were seeded into four pots based on their performances in the previous Asian Games in 2014. The hosts Indonesia were automatically assigned into position A1.[5]
However, the initial draw result was scratched because the UAE and Palestine were omitted,[6][7] so the draw result had to be reconfirmed on 25 July 2018, and the ceremony reopened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 3:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. GMT).[8][9] Palestine were added to Group A and the UAE were added to Group E.
Iraq, which were initially placed in Group C, later withdrew from the tournament. To re-balance the groups so that every group has at least four teams, another re-draw was held on 3 August 2018 to determine which of Palestine or UAE would be moved to Group C to replace Iraq. The UAE were drawn.[10]
Teams in a group are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.[1]
Highest number of points obtained in all group matches;
Highest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
Highest number of goals scored from all group matches between the teams concerned;
If two or more teams have equal ranking with the criteria so far, reapply the criteria above only for them. If this re-application gives no more ranking, apply the following criteria.
Highest number of goals scored in all group matches;
Kicks from the penalty mark only if two (2) teams are involved and they are both on the field of play.
Fewer points of yellow/red cards in all group matches (only one of these deductions shall be applied to a player in a single match):
First yellow card: 1 point;
Indirect red card (second yellow card): 3 points;
Direct red card: 3 points;
Yellow card followed by direct red card: 4 points;
Drawing of lots
Third-placed teams from the three groups are ranked according to the following criteria, after the result against the fifth-placed team of group A are excluded in order to rank them with the same numbers of matches.[1]
Highest number of points obtained in all group matches;
In order to ensure equality when comparing the third-placed team of all groups, the result of the match against the 5th-placed team in Group A was ignored due to the other groups having only four teams.
Source: Asian Games 2018 Archived 11 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) goals scored; 4) fair play points; 5) drawing of lots.
Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out would be used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) would be used to decide the winner if necessary.[1]
As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws. Note: In order to ensure equality, for teams in five-team groups, their match against the fifth-placed teams are excluded when considering the ranking.
^ abcdefg"Football Sports Technical Handbook Version 2.1" (PDF). asiangames2018.id. 7 August 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
^"Number of Football Participants in Asian Games Equal to World Cup". Retrieved 4 June 2018.
^"South Korea beats North Korea in final seconds of Asian Games men's soccer final". NBC Sports. 2 October 2018.
^"Asian Games: South Korea beat North to win gold in dramatic men's football final". The Straits Times. 2 October 2018.
^"บิ๊กโจเผยเหตุทำไมทีมชาติไทยอยู่โถ 2 เอเชียนเกมส์2018" (in Thai). siamsport.co.th. 27 June 2018.
^"United Arab Emirates claim will participate in football at 2018 Asian Games after name omitted from draw". www.insidethegames.biz. 6 July 2018.
^"Bốc thăm lại ASIAD 2018: Việt Nam có thể vào bảng tử thần" (in Vietnamese). Zing News. 20 July 2018. Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
^"'COR' makes debut in Asian Games draw". www.ocasia.org. 5 July 2018. Archived from the original on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
^"亚运男足抽签将在亚足联总部进行 26队仍旧分成6小组" (in Chinese). www.qq.com. 24 July 2018.
^"UAE replace Iraq in Group C". AFC.com. 3 August 2018.
^"Competition Schedule by Events ‐ Football". the-afc.com. Asian Games 2018.
^"Asian Games: Iraq withdraw from football tournament". Reuters. 1 August 2018. Archived from the original on 2 August 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2023.