# 2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship

The 2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship was the ninth edition of the AFC Beach Soccer Championship (second official), the premier beach soccer tournament contested by Asian men's national teams, organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
The tournament took place in Pattaya, Thailand between 7–17 March 2019. The championship also acts as the qualification tournament for Asian teams to the 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Paraguay; the top three teams qualify.
Iran were the defending champions but failed to defend the title after losing Japan in the quarter-final. Japan becomes the champion after beating UAE in final, becoming the first team to win the tournament three times.

## Teams

A total of 15 teams entered the tournament.
| Team | Appearance | Previous best performance |
| Afghanistan | 3rd | 6th place (2017) |
| Bahrain | 8th | Champions (2006) |
| China | 9th | 4th place (2006, 2008) |
| Iran | 9th | Champions (2013, 2017) |
| Iraq | 5th | 9th place (2011, 2017) |
| Japan | 9th | Champions (2009, 2011) |
| Kuwait | 3rd | 9th place (2015) |
| Kyrgyzstan | 1st | Debut |
| Lebanon | 4th | 4th place (2015, 2017) |
| Malaysia | 2nd | 8th place (2017) |
| Oman | 6th | Champions (2015) |
| Palestine | 2nd | 6th place (2013) |
| Qatar | 4th | 11th place (2017) |
| Thailand (hosts) | 4th | 10th place (2017) |
| United Arab Emirates | 8th | Champions (2007, 2008) |

## Draw

The draw of the tournament was held on 3 December 2018 in Pattaya, Thailand. The 15 teams were drawn into three groups of four teams and one group of three teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2017 AFC Beach Soccer Championship final tournament, with the hosts Thailand automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 (unranked) |
| Thailand (hosts) Iran United Arab Emirates Japan | Lebanon Oman Bahrain Afghanistan | Malaysia Iraq China Qatar | Palestine Kuwait Kyrgyzstan |

## Squads

Each team must register a squad of 12 players, minimum two of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 26.1 and 26.2).

## Group stage

Each team earns three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time, one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out, and no points for a defeat. The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.

### Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 10.5):
* Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
* Goal difference in all group matches;
* Goals scored in all group matches;
* Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
* Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
* Drawing of lots.
All times are local, ICT (UTC+7).

### Group A

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | W+ | WP | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Palestine | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 9 | +5 | 9 | Knockout stage |
| 2 | Malaysia | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 13 | −1 | 3 | Knockout stage |
| 3 | Thailand (H) | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 10 | −2 | 3 | |
| 4 | Afghanistan | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 7 | −2 | 2 | |
* 1 2 Head-to-head result: Malaysia 5–4 Thailand.

### Group B

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | W+ | WP | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | United Arab Emirates | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 5 | +10 | 9 | Knockout stage |
| 2 | Lebanon | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 8 | +10 | 6 | Knockout stage |
| 3 | China | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 3 | |
| 4 | Kyrgyzstan | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 26 | −20 | 0 | |

### Group C

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | W+ | WP | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Japan | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 4 | +17 | 9 | Knockout stage |
| 2 | Bahrain | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 10 | +2 | 6 | Knockout stage |
| 3 | Kuwait | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 14 | −3 | 3 | |
| 4 | Qatar | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 20 | −16 | 0 | |

### Group D

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | W+ | WP | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Oman | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 6 | +4 | 6 | Knockout stage |
| 2 | Iran | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 6 | +2 | 3 | Knockout stage |
| 3 | Iraq | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 11 | −6 | 0 | |

## Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) was used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Articles 14.1 and 15.1).

### Bracket

| Quarter-finals | Quarter-finals | Semi-finals | Semi-finals | | Final | Final |
| 14 March | 14 March | | | |
| Palestine | 4 | | | |
| Palestine | 4 | 15 March | 15 March | | |
| Lebanon | 3 | 15 March | 15 March | |
| Lebanon | 3 | Palestine | 0 | |
| 14 March | 14 March | | Palestine | 0 | |
| 14 March | 14 March | Japan | 6 | |
| Japan (a.e.t.) | 3 | Japan | 6 | |
| Japan (a.e.t.) | 3 | | | | 17 March | 17 March |
| Iran | 2 | | | | 17 March | 17 March |
| Iran | 2 | | | | Japan (p) | 2 (3) |
| 14 March | 14 March | | | | | Japan (p) | 2 (3) |
| 14 March | 14 March | | | | United Arab Emirates | 2 (1) |
| United Arab Emirates | 8 | | | | United Arab Emirates | 2 (1) |
| United Arab Emirates | 8 | 15 March | 15 March | | | |
| Malaysia | 1 | 15 March | 15 March | | | |
| Malaysia | 1 | United Arab Emirates | 3 | | | |
| 14 March | 14 March | | United Arab Emirates | 3 | | | |
| 14 March | 14 March | Oman | 2 | | Third place match | Third place match |
| Oman | 5 | Oman | 2 | | Third place match | Third place match |
| Oman | 5 | | | | 17 March | 17 March |
| Bahrain | 3 | | | | 17 March | 17 March |
| Bahrain | 3 | | | | Palestine | 2 (1) |
| | | | | | Oman (p) | 2 (2) |

### Semi-finals

Winners qualify for 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.

### Third place match

Winner qualifies for 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.

### Final
## Winners

* 2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship
* Japan Third title

## Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:
| Top Goalscorer | Most Valuable Player | Fair Play award |
| Ozu Moreira | Ozu Moreira | United Arab Emirates |

## Goalscorers

There were 211 goals scored in 29 matches, for an average of 7.28 goals per match.
9 goals
* Ozu Moreira
8 goals
* Shusei Yamauchi
6 goals
* Haitham Fattal
* Sami Al Bulushi
5 goals
* Takuya Akaguma
* Hussein Abdullah
* Maisara Al-Bawwab
4 goals
* Rashad Jamal
* Han Xuegeng
* Masanori Okuyama
* Abdullatif Al-Hamad
* Abdulrahman Al-Yaqoub
* Mohamad Merhi
* Khalid Al-Oraimi
* Mahmoud Al-Neirab
* Tanandon Praracha
* Waleed Beshr
* Walid Mohammad
3 goals
* Sami Mohammadi
* Salman Al-Yaqoobi
* Cai Weiming
* Liu Haoran
* Takaaki Oba
* Hasrol Ali
* Qushairie Asaari
* Ridhwan Zainal
* Islam Abuobayda
* Fadi Al-Arawi
* Mohammed Hassan
* Abbas Ali
* Kamal Ali
* Ali Mohammad
* Hasham Muntaser
2 goals
* Abdulla Al-Abdulla
* Liu Yisi
* Mohammad Ahmadzadeh
* Mohammad Masoumizadeh
* Masayuki Komaki
* Mohammed Hajeyah
* Erbol Almazbekov
* Kairat Duisheev
* Hassan Kadi
* Mechleb Matar
* Zaharim Yusof
* Mushel Al Araimi
* Yahya Al Araimi
* Abdullah Salim
* Srhan Al-Khlif
* Komkrit Nanan
* Thakorn Wikayaphan
* Ali Karim
* Haitham Mohamed
1 goal
* Shahab Alavi
* Raof Qaderi
* Ebrahim Al-Mahjoob
* Mohamed Darwish
* Ayoob Mubarak
* Abbas Zubayel
* Bai Fan
* Guo Xuchenjiao
* Amir Akbari
* Hamid Behzadpour
* Ali Mirshekari
* Mohammad Mokhtari
* Mohammad Moradi
* Mahdi Shirmohammadi
* Ali Ahmed
* Salah Hasan
* Murtadha Qasim
* Mohammed Naji
* Sajjad Salah
* Naoya Matsuo
* Ali Abdullah
* Urmat Diushenov
* Aktilek Abdykalyi Uulu
* Abbas Zein El Dine
* Sameh Jalal
* Nazri Sulaiman
* Ishaq Al Qasmi
* Jalal Al-Sinani
* Nooh Al Zadjali
* Alaa Atiya
* Fawaz Al-Khater
* Hazem Samy
* Mohamed Al-Jasmi
* Ahmed Beshr
* Humaid Jamal
* Haitham Mohamed
1 own goal
* Abdullatif Al-Hamad (against Bahrain)
* Yahya Al Araimi (against Bahrain)
* Yousef Shaladan (against Malaysia)
* Kittin Lorjanad (against Palestine)

## Qualified teams for FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

The following three teams from AFC qualify for the 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.
| Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup only FIFA era (since 2005) |
| United Arab Emirates | 15 March 2019 | 5 (2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2017) |
| Japan | 15 March 2019 | 9 (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) |
| Oman | 17 March 2019 | 2 (2011, 2015) |
    $^1$ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.