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2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC first round

Tournament details
Dates	12-17 March 2015
Teams	12 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	12
Goals scored	24 (2 per match)
Attendance	89,973 (7,498 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Chencho Gyeltshen Chan Vathanaka Sunil Chhetri Chiquito do Carmo (2 goals each)
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The first round of AFC matches for 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (and 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification) was played from 12 to 23 March 2015.

Format

A total of twelve teams (teams ranked 35–46 in the AFC entrant list) played home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.

Seeding

The draw for the first round was held on 10 February 2015, 15:30 MST (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The seeding was based on the FIFA World Rankings of January 2015 (shown in parentheses below). The 12 teams were seeded into two pots:

• Pot A contained the teams ranked 1–6 (i.e., 35–40 in the AFC entrant list).
• Pot B contained the teams ranked 7–12 (i.e., 41–46 in the AFC entrant list).

Each tie contained a team from Pot A and a team from Pot B, with the team from Pot A hosting the first leg.

Note: Bolded teams qualified for the second round.

Summary

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
India	2–0	Nepal	2–0	0–0
Yemen	3–1	Pakistan	3–1	0–0
East Timor	5-1	Mongolia	4–1	1–0
Cambodia	4–1	Macau	3–0	1–1
Chinese Taipei	2–1	Brunei	0–1	2–0
Sri Lanka	1–3	Bhutan	0–1	1–2

Notes

1. ^ On 12 December 2017, Timor-Leste were ordered by the AFC to forfeit both matches against Mongolia due to the use of falsified documents for their players.

Matches

India	2–0	Nepal
Chhetri 53', 70'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Nepal	0–0	India
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

India won 2–0 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

Yemen	3–1	Pakistan
Al-Matari 3' Boqshan 56' Al-Sasi 69'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Bashir 67' (pen.)

Pakistan	0–0	Yemen
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Yemen won 3–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

East Timor	4–1 Forfeited	Mongolia
Quito 4', 7' R. Silva 84' Neto 85'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Batmönkhiin 87'

Mongolia	0–1 Forfeited	East Timor
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Patrick 9'

Timor-Leste won the first leg 4–1 and the second leg 1–0, thus winning 5–1 on aggregate and advancing to the Second round.

Cambodia	3–0	Macau
Vathanaka 63', 80' Laboravy 90+4'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Macau	1–1	Cambodia
Leong Ka Hang 52' (pen.)	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Bin 29'

Cambodia won 4–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

Chinese Taipei	0–1	Brunei
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Adi 36'

Brunei	0–2	Chinese Taipei
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Wang Rui 37' Chu En-le 52'

Chinese Taipei won 2–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

Sri Lanka	0–1	Bhutan
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	T. Dorji 82'

Bhutan	2–1	Sri Lanka
C. Gyeltshen 6', 90'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Madushan 34'

Bhutan won 3–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

Goalscorers

There were 24 goals scored in 12 matches, for an average of 2 goals per match.

2 goals

• Chencho Gyeltshen
• Chan Vathanaka
• Sunil Chhetri
• Chiquito do Carmo

1 goal

• Tshering Dorji
• Adi Said
• Khoun Laboravy
• Thierry Bin
• Chu En-le
• Wang Rui
• Leong Ka Hang
• Batmönkhiin Erkhembayar
• Hassan Bashir
• Subash Madushan
• Patrick Fabiano
• Jairo Neto
• Rodrigo Silva
• Abdulwasea Al-Matari
• Ala Al-Sasi
• Mohammed Boqshan

Notes

1. ^ This player scored in one of the matches between Timor-Leste and Mongolia that was subsequently forfeited, however FIFA continued to count the goalscorers from those matches in its statistics.
2. Yemen played their home match in Qatar due to security concerns from the 2014–15 Yemeni coup d'état.
3. ^ Pakistan was originally scheduled to play their home match on 17 March 2015 (15:00 UTC+5) at Punjab Stadium, Lahore, but it was postponed due to safety and security reasons after the Lahore church bombings and civil unrest in the city. The match was subsequently rescheduled to be played in Bahrain.
4. ^ On 12 December 2017, Timor-Leste were ordered by the AFC to forfeit both matches against Mongolia due to the use of falsified documents for their players.

References

1. "ExCo approves expanded AFC Asian Cup finals". AFC. 16 April 2014.
2. "India v Nepal headlines 2018 World Cup, 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers draw". AFC. 10 February 2015.
3. "Asian minnows begin World Cup mission". FIFA.com. 9 February 2015. Archived from the original on February 9, 2015.
4. "FIFA Men's Ranking – January 2015 (AFC)". FIFA.com. 8 January 2015. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015.
5. "Green-shirts resume camp ahead of major events". The News International (Pakistan). 13 February 2015. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
6. "FIFA Match Report: Pakistan v Yemen". FIFA.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2015.
7. "Qualifier match between Pakistan and Yemen postponed". FIFA. 16 March 2015. Archived from the original on March 19, 2015.
8. "Pakistan versus Yemen qualifier postponed due to safety concerns". AFC. 17 March 2015.
9. "Pakistan 2018 FIFA World Cup tie switched from Lahore to Bahrain". IBN Live. Reuters. 18 March 2015. Archived from the original on 9 May 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
10. "Qualifying match between Pakistan and Yemen rescheduled". FIFA.com. 19 March 2015. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015.
11. "Pakistan versus Yemen qualifier rescheduled". AFC. 20 March 2015.
12. ^ "Federacao Futebol Timor-Leste expelled from AFC Asian Cup 2023". The-AFC.com. Retrieved 20 January 2017.

External links

• Official FIFA World Cup website
  • Qualifiers – Asia: Round 1, FIFA.com
• FIFA World Cup, the-AFC.com
• AFC Asian Cup, the-AFC.com
• Preliminary Joint Qualification 2018 Archived 2019-02-09 at the Wayback Machine, stats.the-AFC.com

• 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)
• 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification
• 2015 in Asian football