Asunto: [U21] Asian Cup

I thought this would be a good topic for all the users of Australia to become involved and understand exactly what the U21 National Team is doing.

The Asian Cup runs every second season, and this will be the 4th time I will be running the event.

Each season I try to change up the draw a little and make it so every team has a chance of doing better than last time, whether it be getting out of the group stage, making it to the semi finals, getting a podium finish or even winning the cup.

I will leave it up to your National Team Coach to decide on how active they want to be in this thread, but as I've always believed, it is a privilege to coach a National Team, but without you managers, we wouldn't have a National Team to coach. So thank you very much, and ask as many questions, get as involved as you want and analyze each match in as much detail as you would like. It is for the users, not the coaches, that I run this tournament.

U21 ASIAN CUP - 8th EDITION (also Oceania for those two teams)
Link To Asian Cup

*Firstly, I just want to remind every coach, this cup isn't just for the coaches, it is for all the managers in the country you coach. Without them, you wouldn't have a national team and we wouldn't have an Asian Cup, so please, post something in the forums, send your users a message or two saying how we are going. Get that interest built up. They may not respond this season, but someone next season may, or someone the season afterwards. You just never know who may stay in sokker, train a future star, watch a future match, and it can all be built on forum communication about the Asian Cup*

Season 8 of the Asian Cup will be run again this season.

Registrations
Registration
Preliminary Seeding (may change by draw) / world ranking / best rating this season:
1. Australia
2. Israel
3. Iran
4. Jamaica
5. Kazakhstan
6. Zhongguo
7. U.A.E.
8. India
9. Arabia Saudi
10. Viet Nam (via sk-mail)
11. New Zealand
12. Hong Kong

This season we will be starting earlier than normal and will commence in the first week after the new elections Week 03 (30.12.23).
It will be a 3 round group phase followed by a semi final and a final. We will play with 8, 12 or 16 teams, first in best dressed. If we get less than 8, I will make it work.


Fixtures for the Asian Cup.

An example of the season is as follows

The example of the schedule below:

Week 01 (16.12.23) - Friendly
Week 02 (23.12.23) - Friendly (elections finish tomorrow)
Week 03 (30.12.23) - Asian Cup u21 Group
Week 04 (06.01.24) - Asian Cup u21 Group or World Cup Group or Mini World Cup u20
Week 05 (13.01.24) - Asian Cup u21 Group or World Cup Group or Mini World Cup u20
Week 06 (20.01.24) - Asian Cup u21 Semi Final or World Cup Group or Mini World Cup u20
Week 07 (27.01.24) - Asian Cup u21 Final or WC 1/8 or Friendly or Mini World Cup u20
Week 08 (03.02.24) - WC 1/4 or Druid's Cup Group or Mini World Cup u20
Week 09 (10.02.24) - WC 1/2 or Druid's Cup Group
Week 10 (17.02.24) - WC final or Druid's Cup Group
Week 11 (24.02.24) - 1/16 Druid's Cup
Week 12 (02.03.24) - 1/8 Druid's Cup or Friendly
Week 13 (09.03.24) - 1/4 Druid's Cup or Friendly
Week 01 (16.03.24) - 1/2 Druid's Cup or Friendly
Week 02 (23.03.24) - Final Druid's Cup or Friendly


So the final Registration is over, and here are the seeds.

The groups and draw will be based on the following.

The draw will be completely random, which will give everyone a chance of making it through to the semi finals - some less favourite teams having a chance to make it whilst some favourite teams could miss out.

There will be 3 groups of 4 teams, with the winner of each group, plus the best 2nd place advancing.

SEEDING
1. Australia (35)
2. Viet Nam (via sk-mail) (38)
3. India (54)
4. Israel (59)
5. New Zealand (61)
6. as-Saʻūdiyya (66)
7. Zhongguo (71)
8. U.A.E. (75)
9. Jamaica (83)
10. Kazakhstan (85)
11. Hong Kong (89)
12. Iran (96)

Asian Cup VIII - Groups

Group A

A1 - Viet Nam (38)
A2 - India (54)
A3 - New Zealand (61)
A4 - Kazakhstan (85)


Group B

B1 - Australia (35)
B2 - Israel (59)
B3 - Zhongguo (71)
B4 - Jamaica (83)

Group C

C1 - as-Saʻūdiyya (66)
C2 - U.A.E. (75)
C3 - Hong Kong (89)
C4 - Iran (96)

As for organising matches, please remember the following:

- Week 1: 1v4, 2v3
- Week 2: 1v3, 2v4
- Week 3: 1v2, 3v4
- Home team invites in standard mode (not Cup). If sent in cup mode, only the score after 90minutes will be taken in to consideration.

Asian Cup VIII Draw

Week 1 (30.12.23)
Viet Nam vs Kazakhstan - 0:5 (forfeit)
India vs New Zealand

Australia vs Jamaica - 0:5 (forfeit)
Israel vs Zhonghou

as-Sa'udiyya vs Iran - 0:0 (forfeit for both teams)
UAE vs Hong Kong

Week 2 (06.01.24)
Viet Nam vs New Zealand
India vs Kazakhstan

Australia vs Zhonghou
Israel vs Jamaice

as-Sa'udiyya vs Hong Kong
U.A.E vs Iran

Week 3 (13.01.23)
Viet Nam vs India
New Zealand vs Kazakhstan

Australia vs Israel
Zhonghou vs Jamaica

as-Saudiyya vs U.A.E
Hong Kong vs Iran

As with in the past, Home team will invite in League mode for the group phase and Cup mode for the Finals phase.
Points will be awarded: 3 - win, 2 - draw, 1 - loss, 0 - forfeit. Forfeit will incur a 5-0 loss.


Registration:
Priority will be given to:
1. Countries entirely encompassed by Asia OR play in the AFC in real life world cup OR OFC in real life
2. Countries who cross multiple continents, one of which is Asia or Oceania
3. Countries who do not have another cup that their country could freely join due to it not being run this season/not existing ie African Cup, UEFA cup, Druid's Cup
4. Teams not falling in to the above brackets


***All decisions made by the organiser will be final, however you are welcome to question a decision initially via forum, but continued in sk-mail should the answer not be satisfactory. Fairness to all will be attempted if possible however some decisions may be required to maintain competition and further clarification made in future U21 Asian Cups.

Please post any questions ASAP to allow appropriate dissemination of information.


FRONT PAGE UPDATED

How has Australia gone in the Past?

In total there have been 7 Asian Cups run in the new era, and 4 pre new age era for a total of 11 Asian Cups (not every team has played every Asian Cup).

Best result: Gold x3 (most susccesful nation)

List of Results:
BRONZE
SILVER
GOLD
1/16
QF
SILVER
GOLD
GOLD
BRONZE

Can’t think of anything to add tbh….just happy with the detailed updates. :D
Shout out if any of mine are in the mix (even if it’s with future seasons in mind) and how you like to see them trained…I.e. preferred position, etc.
Especially as I’m still undecided what I’m doing with Zdrilic.

Well what a final week, with many changes in the table (it didn't help that I think I messed up the points section last week, but have gone through and double checked for this final points table)



The BIG surprise here, and a huge congratulations to Churruca, the 8th seed UAE finished on the most points of all teams in the Group phase.
A commiserations to Kazakhstan who were oh so close to making it to the semi finals, with just goal difference separating Israel and Kazakhstan, an incredible effort given their original seeding was 10, and in arguably the hardest group of the competition.

So the top 4 going in to the finals are as follows.

1. U.A.E
=2. Australia
=2. India
4. Israel.

The first round of the semis will be as follows. Original seeds are in the brackets.
1v4 - U.A.E (8) vs Israel (4)
2v3 - Australia (1) vs India (3)

Thank you for all the other teams who participated in the Asian Cup. Couldn't have done it without all of you.
(editado)

Nice one….good luck in the semi final.

Australia 1:0 India

Well the scoreline was a lot closer than the actual match with 16 shots to 0, but I am happy we made it through who have historically been tough opponents.

The other semi final on paper was a huge upset with UAE beating Israel (former Asian Cup champs from maybe 4 seasons ago, where they beat us) 5:2.

UAE went in to the tournament as 8th seed, managed to top their group against the likes of Viet Nam (seed 2), New Zealand (seed 5) and Kazahstand (seed 10 but who have recently performed very strongly in Asian Cups).

This may be the last time we see a full U21 squad this season, with us joining the Druid Cup, where we will be limited to 2 U21s and the rest U20s, so lets get out there and support them.



As always, if there are any types of matches you would like to see, whether it be underage groups, B teams, competition teams, Aus only etc. I am always all ears.
I appreciate all the support everyone here has for the NT

UAE have been banging in the goals. Will be a good final. Mon the Joeys.

In what was a very close final scoreline, we managed to take the win 1:0 (13 shots to 3).

With a late substituation of Crews to use his pace and fresh legs to get through the UAE defensive line, he was able to secure it in the 89th minute with a clutch goal

UAE had an incredible tournament and thankfully we were able to hold them off to secure our 4th Asian Cup title (3rd under my tennure).

Well done G…any tournie win is a job well done.

Nailbiter. Well done mate.

A new seaspn of the Asian cup is upon us and I have had to hand over the reigns due to a lack of time.

But that doesn't mean we haven't entered (even though it's probably back for our rating points), and let's see what we can do.

From the teams that actually entered, we are the favourites based on ranking points. I haven't gone through to see team strength though, which would give us a more accurate strength

I managed to update all the skills and send out a new team...only for our number 1 mid to get injured on the eve of the match.

I will be doing my best to make sure we have some great results, and hopefully maintain out NT ranking, despite some fun travels that are to come

First match of the Asian Cup, and India gave us a big scare.

We did dominate them in shots, but on the scoreline, we only won 3:2.

I wasn't able to actually watch the match to see how it played out, bur a close match like that did not help our ranking battle.

Anyway, some to move on to Saudi Arabia

Ranking points aside, a win’s a win…..same points for 3-2 as 10-0. :)
Well done.