2018 AFC U-19 Championship
The 2018 AFC U-19 Championship was the 40th edition of the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-19 national teams of Asia. It took place in Indonesia, which was appointed as the host by the AFC on 25 July 2017, between 18 October and 4 November 2018. A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland as the AFC representatives. Saudi Arabia won their third title, and qualified together  with runners-up South Korea and semi-finalists Qatar and Japan, which were the defending champions but eliminated by Saudi Arabia. Qualification. Qualification process. Qualification matches were played between 24 October and 8 November 2017. Although Indonesia had already qualified automatically as hosts, they also participated in the qualifiers and finished third place after going down 0–3 and 1–4 loss to South Korea and Malaysia sides respectively. Chinese Taipei returned to the tournament finals for the first time since 1974 as one of the best group runners-up. The 2018 qualifiers also witnessed a unique situation where two teams had  to go to penalties to determine the higher-position team. It happened in Group C after Qatar and Iraq were tied in all tie-breaking criteria and both of them played among each other in the last match. Qatar won the penalties and finished top of the group while Iraq finished second. Twelve out of 2018 qualified sixteen teams played in the 2016 finals. Qualified teams. The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. Venues. The matches were played in three venues around Greater Jakarta. Draw. The draw was held on 18 May 2018, 15:00 WIB (), at the Fairmont  Hotel in Jakarta. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2016 AFC U-19 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Indonesia automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw. Squads. Players born on or after 1 January 1999 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers. Group stage. The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals. Teams were ranked  according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings: All times are local, WIB (). Group A. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Group B. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Group C. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Group D. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Knockout stage. In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary. Quarter-finals. Winners qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Awards. The following awards were given  at the conclusion of the tournament: Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup. The following four teams from AFC qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Concerns and controversies. An error was made before the start of Jordan–South Korea Group C match on 22 October 2018, where the operator played North Korean national anthem instead of South Korean national anthem. The wrong anthem was stopped immediately and the operator has since been replaced.