The draw for the Asian Qualifiers Round 2 was made on May 18 at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Divided into four pots according to their seedings, the 12 teams were drawn into three groups with only two spots available at Paris 2024.

Among Group C rivals, Japan are considered the strongest team as they are one of the title favourites.

Meanwhile Southeast Asian champions Việt Nam, world No 33, should beat Uzbekistan and India who are ranked No 59 and No 61, respectively. Uzbekistan are hosts of Group C.

In Group A, hosts Australia are drawn with Chinese Taipei, the Philippines and Iran.

Asian Cup 2022 winners China are the top seed and Group B against North Korea, Thailand and South Korea their challengers.

Round 2, scheduled for October 23 to November 1, will see four teams – the three group winners and the best-placed runners-up – progressing to Round 3.

They will play home and away matches, slated for February 24 and 28, 2024 in this round, with the eventual winners taking the two spots reserved for Asia in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Paris 2024.

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, hosts Japan exited in the quarter-final stage against Sweden, while Australia finished fourth after losing a close bronze medal encounter to the USA.

China won the silver medal in Atlanta 1996 with Japan following suit in London 2012.

Vietnamese players will begin their training camp early next week for the World Cup tournament in July-August. They will play all three matches in New Zealand.

After World Cup, they will keep eyes on the Olympic event.

In other football news, the AFC also conducted a draw for the Round 2 of the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup 2024 Qualifiers.

The remaining eight teams are divided in two groups.

Việt Nam are in Group B with Australia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. Group A contains South Korea, Thailand, Iran and India.

Each group will be played as a single round-robin league format in a centralised venue on September 16 to 24, with the host member association to be determined at a later stage.

Four teams – the winners and runners-up of each group – will qualify for the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup 2024.

They will join the top three teams from the AFC U16 Women’s Championship Thailand 2019 – defending champions Japan, finalists North Korea and third-placed China – and hosts Indonesia in the ninth edition of the tournament, set to be held from April 7 to 20, 2024.

This will be the first time that Indonesia are serving as hosts for the tournament, which was rebranded to its current name in January 2021. /.