New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The Final Draw for the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Thailand 2026 will be conducted in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday at 12:30 IST.

For the 12th edition of the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup, twelve teams will be divided into three groups of four each. India were one of the 11 teams (eight group winners and three best-ranked runners-up) that secured their place in the tournament via the qualifiers, joining hosts Thailand. India topped Group D ahead of Indonesia, Myanmar and Turkmenistan in the qualifiers held in August.

The AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Thailand 2026 is scheduled to take place from April 1 to 18, 2026. This will mark India’s first appearance in the competition since 2006.

For the pot allocations for the Final Draw, the seedings are based on a points system derived from the teams’ final rankings across the previous three editions of the Finals, with the points from each edition weighted progressively as follows: 100% of ranking points for the latest edition (2024), 50% of ranking points for the second-last edition (2019) and 25% of ranking points for the third-last edition (2017).

India, who did not qualify for any of the last three editions, are placed in Pot 4 and will be drawn against either Thailand, DPR Korea, or Japan from Pot 1, Australia, Korea Republic, or China PR from Pot 2, and Vietnam, Uzbekistan, or Chinese Taipei from Pot 3.

The top two sides from each group, along with the two best third-placed teams, will progress to the quarter-finals. The four semi-finalists will qualify for the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup Poland 2026, where DPR Korea are the current holders.

As hosts, Thailand will be designated as the top seed and occupy position A1.

Pot allocations for the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Thailand 2026 Final Draw (Seedings in brackets):

Pot 1: Thailand (hosts), DPR Korea (1), Japan (2)

Pot 2: Australia (3), Korea Republic (5), China PR (6)

Pot 3: Vietnam (7), Uzbekistan (8), Chinese Taipei (9)

Pot 4: India (10), Jordan (11), Bangladesh (12)

The draw will be streamed live on the AFC Asian Cup YouTube Channel.

–IANS

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