# 2003 AFC Women's Championship

The 2003 AFC Women's Championship was a women's football tournament held in Thailand from 8 to 21 June 2003. It was the 14th edition of the AFC Women's Championship, a tournament for women's national teams from countries affiliated with the Asian Football Confederation.
The competition was held in Bangkok in the Rajamangala Stadium and in Nakhon Sawan in the Nakhon Sawan Stadium. The tournament was won by the defending champions North Korea women's national football team (Korea DPR). As the championship was also used for qualifying for the FIFA Women's World Cup, North Korea qualified as champions, China qualifying as runners-up, and South Korea qualifying as the third-placed team. Japan as the fourth-placed team faced another match for qualification.

## Participating teams and structure

Fourteen teams took part in the competition. This included the hosts Thailand and the defending champions North Korea. The teams were split into 3 groups, with the each team playing all the others in the group in a round robin format. At the end of the group stage the four teams with the best results from all the groups who qualified in the 1st 2 spaces in each group qualify to the knockout stage. This is played in the format of a semi-final, a 3rd/4th place match, as well as a final.
The winners and runners-up of the competition automatically qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2003. The 3rd place team has to compete against a CONCACAF team over home and away matches for a final place in the FIFA Women's World Cup. The runners-up and the 3rd place team were re-berthed to 3rd and 4th place respectively as China, as original host of the World Cup and would automatically qualified to final rounds, got 2nd place.
This was the last tournament to still issue invitation. From 2006, a separate qualification round was introduced to find out teams to qualify for the Women's Asian Cup.
* China
* Chinese Taipei
* Guam
* Hong Kong
* India
* Japan
* North Korea
* South Korea
* Myanmar
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Thailand
* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam

## Venues

| Bangkok | Nakhon Sawan |
| Rajamangala Stadium | Nakhon Sawan Stadium |
| Capacity: 65,000 | Capacity: 15,000 |
| BangkokNakhon Sawan ||

## Group stage
### Group A

| Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| North Korea | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 45 | 2 | +43 | 10 |
| South Korea | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 20 | 2 | +18 | 10 |
| Thailand | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 21 | −15 | 6 |
| Hong Kong | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 24 | −22 | 3 |
| Singapore | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 24 | −24 | 0 |

### Group B

| Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| Japan | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 0 | +34 | 12 |
| Myanmar | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 8 | +3 | 7 |
| Chinese Taipei | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| Philippines | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 26 | −24 | 3 |
| Guam | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 15 | −13 | 0 |

### Group C

| Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| China | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0 | +29 | 9 |
| Vietnam | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 9 | −3 | 6 |
| India | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 14 | −7 | 3 |
| Uzbekistan | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 21 | −19 | 0 |

## Knockout stage
### Semi-finals

Winners qualified for 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup

### Third place match

Since the host China PR reached the final, the winner qualified for 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup while the loser entered CONCACAF–AFC play-off.

### Final
## Awards

* 2003 AFC Women's Championship winners
* North Korea Second title

## Goalscorers

There were 184 goals scored in 30 matches, for an average of 6.13 goals per match.
15 goals
* Ri Kum-suk
9 goals
* Mio Otani
* Jin Pyol-hui
7 goals
* Bai Jie
* Sun Wen
* Park Eun-sun
6 goals
* Homare Sawa
5 goals
* Teng Wei
* Karina Maruyama
* Yayoi Kobayashi
* Lee Ji-eun
* Yun Yong-hui
* Lưu Ngọc Mai
3 goals
* Han Duan
* Liu Ying
* Hwang In-sun
* Aye Nandar Hlaing
* Ho Sun-hui
* Pak Kum-chun
* Ri Un-gyong
2 goals
* Gao Hongxia
* Ren Liping
* Lin Yu-hui
* Sujata Kaur
* Thongam Tababi Devi
* Tomoe Kato
* Cha Sung-mi
* Kim Jin-hee
* San San Kyu
* Pak Kyong-sun
* Ra Mi-ae
* Ri Un-suk
1 goal
* Pu Wei
* Qu Feifei
* Zhao Lihong
* Zhou Xiaoxia
* Chen Shu-chiung
* Cheng Yu-hsin
* Ho Meng-ting
* Huang Chun-lan
* Wu Hsin-jung
* Rhoda Santos
* Tera Flores
* Ng Wing Kum
* Yau Ka Wai
* Maichon Khundrakpam
* Rani Chanu
* Robita Wangkhem
* Aya Miyama
* Eriko Arakawa
* Hiromi Ikeda
* Kyoko Yano
* Tomomi Miyamoto
* Yuka Miyazaki
* Lee Myung-hwa
* Shin Sun-nam
* Sung Hyun-ah
* Hla Hla Thant
* Moe Moe War
* Thu Zar Htwe
* Zin Mar Wann
* Jang Ok-gyong
* O Kum-ran
* Ri Hyang-ok
* Sin Kum-ok
* Josephine Loren
* Rhea Penales
* Anootsara Maijarern
* Chownee Phanlet
* Hathairat Thongsri
* Kitiya Thiangtham
* Pranee Saipin
* Saranya Kaewka
* Narghiza Kosimova
* Nargiza Abdurasulova
* Đoàn Thị Kim Chi
1 own goal
* Yayoi Kobayashi (against North Korea)
* Bautista Callejas (against Myanmar)
2 own goals
* Huang Feng-chiu (against Japan and Myanmar)

### Tournament teams ranking

This table will show the ranking of teams throughout the tournament.
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Final result |
| 1 | China | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 3 | +4 | 10 | Champions |
| 2 | Australia (H) | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 2 | +13 | 14 | Runners-up |
| 3 | North Korea | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3 | +13 | 13 | Third place |
| 4 | Japan | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 19 | 6 | +13 | 9 | Fourth place |
| 5 | South Korea | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 6 | +8 | 6 | Eliminated in group stage |
| 6 | Vietnam | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 7 | −6 | 3 | Eliminated in group stage |
| 7 | Thailand | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 26 | −24 | 3 | Eliminated in group stage |
| 8 | Myanmar | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 10 | −8 | 0 | Eliminated in group stage |
| 9 | Chinese Taipei | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 14 | −13 | 0 | Eliminated in group stage |