2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC first round

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC first round
Tournament details
Dates	6-11 June 2019
Teams	12 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	12
Goals scored	32 (2.67 per match)
Attendance	91,876 (7,656 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Shahrel Fikri ; (4 goals)
	← 2018 2026 →

The AFC first round of 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, which also served as the first round of 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualification, was played from 6 to 11 June 2019.^[1]

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.

The six losers were eligible to enter the 2020 AFC Solidarity Cup, which was subsequently cancelled.

Timor-Leste were barred from participating in the qualification tournament after being found to have fielded a total of twelve ineligible players in 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification matches, among other competitions.^[2] However, as FIFA did not bar Timor-Leste from the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, they were still allowed to enter the competition, but were ineligible to qualify for the Asian Cup.^[3]

Seeding

The draw for the first round was held on 17 April 2019 at 11:00 MST (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.^[4]

The seeding was based on the FIFA World Rankings of April 2019 (shown in parentheses below).^[5] Teams from Pot A hosted the first leg, while teams from Pot B hosted the second leg.

Note: Bolded teams qualified for the second round.

Pot A	Pot B
Malaysia (168) Cambodia (173) Macau (183) Laos (184) Bhutan (186) Mongolia (187)	Bangladesh (188) Guam (193) Brunei (194) East Timor (195)^{[note 1]} Pakistan (200) Sri Lanka (202)

Summary

The first legs were played on 6–7 June, and the second legs on 11 June 2019.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Mongolia	3–2	Brunei	2–0	1–2
Macau	1–3	Sri Lanka	1–0	0–3^{[note 2]}
Laos	0–1	Bangladesh	0–1	0–0
Malaysia	12–2	East Timor	7–1	5–1
Cambodia	4–1	Pakistan	2–0	2–1
Bhutan	1–5	Guam	1–0	0–5

Matches

6 June 2019

17:00 UTC+8

Mongolia	2–0	Brunei
Tsedenbal 9' Naranbold 69'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

MFF Football Centre, Ulaanbaatar

Attendance: 1,685

Referee: Pranjal Banerjee (India)

11 June 2019

20:15 UTC+8

Brunei	2–1	Mongolia
Razimie 5', 34'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Tsedenbal 47' (pen.)

Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium, Bandar Seri Begawan

Attendance: 17,210

Referee: Ahmad Yacoub Ibrahim (Jordan)

Mongolia won 3–2 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

6 June 2019

19:30 UTC+8

Macau	1–0	Sri Lanka
Duarte 52'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Zhuhai Sports Center Stadium, Zhuhai (China)^{[note 3]}

Attendance: 901

Referee: Kim Dae-yong (South Korea)

11 June 2019

15:30 UTC+5:30

Sri Lanka	3–0 Awarded^{[note 2]}	Macau
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Sugathadasa Stadium, Colombo

Referee: Çarymyrat Kurbanow (Turkmenistan)

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

6 June 2019

18:30 UTC+7

Laos	0–1	Bangladesh
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Rabiul 72'

New Laos National Stadium, Vientiane

Attendance: 4,572

Referee: Ho Wai Sing (Hong Kong)

11 June 2019

19:00 UTC+6

Bangladesh	0–0	Laos
	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka

Attendance: 7,453

Referee: Timur Faizullin (Kyrgyzstan)

Bangladesh won 1–0 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

7 June 2019^{[note 4]}

20:45 UTC+8

Malaysia	7–1	East Timor
Corbin-Ong 12' Shahrel 23' Norshahrul 43' Safawi 45', 59' Faiz 78' Akhyar 89'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	João Pedro 52'

Bukit Jalil National Stadium, Kuala Lumpur

Attendance: 4,244

Referee: Sherzod Kasimov (Uzbekistan)

11 June 2019

20:45 UTC+8

East Timor	1–5	Malaysia
Gama 72'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Shahrel 11', 17', 64' Sumareh 37' Akhyar 55'

Bukit Jalil National Stadium, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)^{[note 5]}

Attendance: 12,776

Referee: Yusuke Araki (Japan)

Malaysia won 12–2 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

6 June 2019

18:30 UTC+7

Cambodia	2–0	Pakistan
Chanthea 81' Sokumpheak 84'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Phnom Penh Olympic Stadium, Phnom Penh

Attendance: 33,706

Referee: Shaun Evans (Australia)

11 June 2019

19:00 UTC+3

Pakistan	1–2	Cambodia
Bashir 17' (pen.)	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)	Rosib 64' Bunheing 89'

Hamad bin Khalifa Stadium, Doha (Qatar)^{[note 6]}

Attendance: 300

Referee: Hanna Hattab (Syria)

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

6 June 2019

18:00 UTC+6

Bhutan	1–0	Guam
Ts. Dorji 35'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Changlimithang Stadium, Thimphu

Attendance: 8,000

Referee: Omar Al-Yaqoubi (Oman)

11 June 2019

15:15 UTC+10

Guam	5–0	Bhutan
Lagutang 23' Cunliffe 27', 82', 90+4' Malcolm 51'	Report (FIFA) Report (AFC)

Guam F.A. National Training Center, Dededo

Attendance: 1,029

Referee: Yu Ming-hsun (Chinese Taipei)

Guam won 5–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round.

Goalscorers

There were 32 goals scored in 11 matches, for an average of 2.91 goals per match.

4 goals

Shahrel Fikri

3 goals

Jason Cunliffe

2 goals

1 goal

Notes

^ Timor-Leste already barred for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup but were competing to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
^ ^a ^b The match was awarded as a 3–0 victory to Sri Lanka,^[6] after Macau did not send their team for the match due to safety reasons following the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings.^[7]
^ Macau played their home match in Zhuhai, China, due to ongoing maintenance of Estádio Campo Desportivo.^[8]
^ The Malaysia v Timor-Leste match, originally to be played on 6 June 2019, was postponed due to Eid al-Fitr celebrations following a request from the Football Association of Malaysia.^[9]
^ Timor-Leste played their home match in Malaysia due to a lack of a suitable venue in their country.^[10]
^ Pakistan played their home match in Qatar.^[11]