The Philippines landed in Group A alongside Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan.
This is one of those rare times that the Philippines gets drawn in a group without its usual Southeast Asian heartbreakers, made all the more luckier that the two strongest teams in competition — DPR Korea and Korea Republic — get drawn elsewhere.
Only Jordan is ranked higher than the Philippines in the group. The Philippines is the 11th seeded team among the 21-nation Asian competition taking part in the qualifiers with Jordan at seventh and Bahrain at 14th. Iraq, UAE and Tajikistan, which has been selected as hosts for this group, are unseeded.
With Jordan also hosting the AFC Women’s Asian Cup event proper in April 2018, they automatically qualify to the final round along with the three highest-ranked teams from the last AFC Women’s Asian Cup — Japan, Australia and China.
Therefore, in the event that Jordan tops its group, the runner-up will also advance to the final competition. This means two teams will qualify from Group A. For the other three groups, only one team will advance.
The other groupings have Korea Republic, Uzbekistan, Hong Kong, India and DPR Korea in Group B —- easily considered the group of death with the presence of both Korean nations. DPR Korea are the hosts for this group’s qualifiers.
The games which will also serve as FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers for France 2019 will run from April 3 to 12 later this year.
The Philippines is scheduled to play UAE first, followed by Iraq, Tajikistan, Bahrain then finally Jordan.
