2023–24 AFC Cup group stage explained

The 2023–24 AFC Cup group stage was played from 18 September to 11 December 2023.^[1] A total of 36 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 11 places in the knockout stage of the 2023–24 AFC Cup.

Draw

The draw for the group stage was held on 24 August 2023 at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 36 teams were drawn into nine groups of four teams: three groups each in the West Asia Zone (Groups A–C) and the ASEAN Zone (Groups F–H), one group in the Central Asia Zone (Groups E), and one group each in the South Asia Zone (Group D) and the East Asia Zone (Group I). For each zone, teams were seeded into four pots and drawn into the relevant positions within each group, based on their association ranking and their seeding within their association, in consideration of technical balance between groups. Teams from the same association in zones with more than one group (West Asia Zone and ASEAN Zone) could not be drawn into the same group.

width=12%	Zone	width=8%	Groups	width=20%	Pot 1	width=20%	Pot 2	width=20%	Pot 3	width=20%	Pot 4
West Asia Zone	A–C	Al-Wehdat	Al-Kuwait	Jabal Al-Mukaber	Al-Arabi
		Al-Zawraa	Al-Riffa	Al-Kahrabaa	Al-Ittihad
		Al-Ahed	Al-Fotuwa	Nejmeh	Al-Nahda

South Asia Zone	D	Odisha	Bashundhara Kings	Maziya	Mohun Bagan

Central Asia Zone	E	Ravshan Kulob	Altyn Asyr	Abdysh-Ata Kant	Merw Mary

ASEAN Zone	F–H	Hai Phong	Macarthur FC	Shan United	Central Coast Mariners
		DH Cebu	Hougang United	Stallion Laguna	PSM Makassar
		Terengganu	Bali United	Sabah	Phnom Penh Crown

East Asia Zone	I	Chao Pak Kei	Taiwan Steel	FC Ulaanbaatar	Taichung Futuro

Format

In the group stage, each group is played on a home-and-away round-robin format. The following teams will advance to the knockout stage:

The winners of each group and the best runners-up in the West Asia Zone and the ASEAN Zone advance to the Zonal semi-finals.
The winners of each group in the South Asia Zone, Central Asia Zone and the East Asia Zone advance to the Inter-zone play-off semi-finals.

Tiebreakers

The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers were applied in the following order (Regulations Article 8.3):^[2]

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 playing each other in the last round of the group are tied;
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);
Association ranking

Drawing of lots.

Schedule

The schedule of each matchday was as follows.^[1]

Matchday	Dates
Matchday	West	South	Central	ASEAN	East
Matchday 1	18–19 September 2023		20–21 September 2023
Matchday 2	2–3 October 2023		4–5 October 2023
Matchday 3	23–24 October 2023		25–26 October 2023
Matchday 4	6–7 November 2023		8–9 November 2023
Matchday 5	27–28 November 2023		29–30 November 2023
Matchday 6	11–12 December 2023		13–14 December 2023

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Group E

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Group F

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Group G

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Group H

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Group I

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Ranking of runner-up teams

West Asia Zone

Since Group A only had three teams, the results against fourth-placed teams in Groups B and C were omitted for this ranking.

ASEAN Zone

Notes and References

Web site: AFC Competitions Calendar 2022. the-afc.com. Asian Football Confederation. 2022-01-13. 2022-01-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20220113083709/https://assets.the-afc.com/downloads/calendars/AFC-Competitions-Calendar-2022-as-of-Dec-22.pdf. dead.
Web site: AFC Cup 2023/24 Competition Regulations . Asian Football Confederation. 27 October 2023. 6 September 2023.