2011 AFC Asian Cup

2011 AFC Asian Cup
The 2011 AFC Asian Cup was the 15th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in Qatar from 7 to 29 January 2011. It was the fifteenth time the tournament has been held, and the second time it has been hosted by Qatar, the other being the 1988 AFC Asian Cup. Japan won the cup after a 1–0 win against Australia, and earned the right to compete in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil as the representative from AFC.
A television viewing audience of 484 million in 80 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, North America and North Africa witnessed Japan defeat Australia 1–0 in the final.
Host selection
Qatar, India and Iran all lodged interest in hosting the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, while Australia also considered making a late bid. Qatar officially submitted their bid on 19 June 2006, while India withdrew their interest and Iran failed to submit proper documentation for their bid on time.
Qatar was announced as host nation on 29 July 2007, during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia. Due to FIFA regulations stating that confederation events can be hosted either in January or July, and July being peak summer heat in the Middle East, 2011 Asian Cup took place in January of that year.
Qualification
The teams finishing first, second and third in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, and the host nation for the 2011 competition, received automatic byes to the finals. They were joined by the top two finishers in each of five qualifying groups. The AFC Challenge Cup acted as a further qualification competition for eligible countries within the emerging and developing category of member associations. The winners of the AFC Challenge Cup competitions in 2008 and 2010 qualified automatically to the 2011 AFC Asian Cup finals. These two winners were India and North Korea. It was India's first play for the Asian Cup since 1984, and North Korea's first since 1992.
The final day of qualification was 3 March 2010.
List of qualified teams
Notes:
1 Bold indicates champion for that year
2 Italic indicates host
Draw
The draw for the AFC Asian Cup 2011 was held on 23 April 2010 in Doha, Qatar. Qatar were seeded among the top group.
Seeding
Seeding was announced on 22 April 2010. Qatar were automatically placed in Group A. FIFA rankings of April 2010 are given in brackets.
Venues
Members of the AFC Organising Committee for AFC Asian Cup 2011 have agreed the use of five stadiums for the 2011 tournament.
Officials
12 referees and 24 assistants were selected for the tournament, along with three stand-by referees:
Standby referees
Squads
Each country's final squad of 23 players was submitted by 28 December 2010.
Group stage
All times are Arabian Standard Time (AST) – UTC+3
Tie-breaking criteria
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss) and tie breakers are in following order:
Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Goal difference in all the group matches;
Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;
Kicks from the penalty mark if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;
Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches; (1 point for each yellow card, 3 points for each red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for each direct red card, 4 points for each yellow card followed by a direct red card)
Drawing of lots.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Knockout stage
All times are Arabian Standard Time (AST) – UTC+3
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place playoff
Final
Statistics
Goalscorers
With five goals, Koo Ja-cheol was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 90 goals were scored by 60 different players, with three of them credited as own goals.
5 goals:
Koo Ja-cheol
4 goals:
Ismail Abdul-Latif
Ji Dong-won
3 goals:
Harry Kewell
Ryoichi Maeda
Shinji Okazaki
Alexander Geynrikh
2 goals:
Tim Cahill
Mile Jedinak
Faouzi Mubarak Aaish
Sunil Chhetri
Shinji Kagawa
Yusef Ahmed
Fábio César Montezine
Abdelrazaq Al Hussain
Odil Ahmedov
Ulugbek Bakayev
Server Djeparov
1 goal:
David Carney
Brett Emerton
Brett Holman
Robbie Kruse
Saša Ognenovski
Carl Valeri
Deng Zhuoxiang
Hao Junmin
Yu Hai
Zhang Linpeng
Gouramangi Singh
Arash Afshin
Karim Ansarifard
Iman Mobali
Mohammad Nouri
Gholamreza Rezaei
Karrar Jassim
Younis Mahmoud
Makoto Hasebe
Keisuke Honda
Hajime Hosogai
Masahiko Inoha
Tadanari Lee
Maya Yoshida
Hassan Abdel Fattah
Baha'a Abdul-Rahman
Odai Al-Saify
Bashar Bani Yaseen
Bader Al-Mutawa
Mohamed El Sayed
Bilal Mohammed
Sebastián Soria
Taisir Al-Jassim
Hwang Jae-won
Ki Sung-yueng
Son Heung-min
Yoon Bit-garam
Firas Al-Khatib
Mohamed Al Zeno
Maksim Shatskikh
1 own goal:
Ali Diab (for Jordan)
2 own goals:
Walid Abbas (for Iraq and Iran)
Awards
The AFC selected the MVP, top goalscorer, fair play award and four quality players of the tournament. They didn't officially announce the all-star team of this tournament.
Most Valuable Player
Keisuke Honda
Top Goalscorer
Koo Ja-cheol
Fair Play Award
Quality Players
Keisuke Honda
Park Ji-sung
Harry Kewell
Server Djeparov
Final standings
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| colspan="11"| Eliminated in the quarter-finals
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| colspan="11"| Eliminated in group stage
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Marketing
Official match ball
The Nike Total 90 Tracer was the official match ball of the tournament.
Official mascot
Official mascot were Saboog, Tmbki, Freha, Zkriti and Tranaa.
Official song
For marketing of the event, the organisers opted for the slogan "Yalla Asia" with a song sung by international artists Jay Sean and Karl Wolf, featuring Radhika Vekaria.
Yalla Asia was composed and written by Radhika Vekaria, Max Herman and Zoulikha El Fassi. Max Herman produced the record for Zoul Projects 2011. The music video features Football Free Stylers Abbas Farid and Soufiane Touzani.
The music video was released on January 9, 2011.
Controversies
The 2011 Asian Cup was not without controversies as concerns were risen about the extremely low crowds at most games not featuring hosts Qatar. The average attendance was just 12,006, much lower than the previous AFC Asian Cup tournaments. North Korea and the United Arab Emirates both had the lowest attendance numbers with approximately 3,000 and 6,000 attendances respectively. The final match between Japan and Australia saw as many as 3,000 to 10,000 fans with valid tickets denied entry to the stadium which then allegedly sparked small skirmishes among fans, "It was just incredibly badly handled. There were kids and families, not causing any problem, being confronted by riot police and being told they weren't getting in", according to Andy Richardson, Al Jazeera's sports correspondent. The AFC stated that the gates were closed early for security concerns and organisers did not anticipate an influx of Japanese and Australian fans. The organising committee has offered to refund all tickets not redeemed at the match.
After staging the 2006 Asian Games, this Asian Cup was being closely watched as an indicator to see how Qatar copes with hosting a major international football tournament in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Notes
References
External links
AFC Asian Cup 2011 Official Site (Archived)
2011 AFC Asian Cup at soccerway.com
2011
2011
Asia
2010–11 in Qatari football
January 2011 sports events in Asia