2011 AFC Asian Cup

The 2011 AFC Asian Cup was the 15th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in Qatar from 7 to 29 January 2011. It was the second time that the tournament was hosted by Qatar, the previous occasion being the 1988 AFC Asian Cup. Japan won the cup after a 1–0 win against Australia, and earned the right to compete in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil as the representative from AFC.

A television viewing audience of 484 million in 80 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, North America and North Africa witnessed Japan defeat Australia 1–0 in the final.

Host selection
Qatar, India and Iran all lodged interest in hosting the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, while Australia also considered making a late bid. Qatar officially submitted their bid on 19 June 2006, while India withdrew their interest and Iran failed to submit proper documentation for their bid on time.

Qatar was announced as host nation on 29 July 2007, during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia. Due to FIFA regulations stating that confederation events can be hosted either in January or July, and July being peak summer heat in the Middle East, 2011 Asian Cup took place in January of that year.

Qualification
The teams finishing first, second and third in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, and the host nation for the 2011 competition, received automatic byes to the finals. They were joined by the top two finishers in each of five qualifying groups. The AFC Challenge Cup acted as a further qualification competition for eligible countries within the emerging and developing category of member associations. The winners of the AFC Challenge Cup competitions in 2008 and 2010 qualified automatically to the 2011 AFC Asian Cup finals. These two winners were India and North Korea. It was India's first play for the Asian Cup since 1984, and North Korea's first since 1992.

The final day of qualification was 3 March 2010.

List of qualified teams


Notes:
 * 1 Bold indicates champion for that year
 * 2 Italic indicates host

Draw
The draw for the AFC Asian Cup 2011 was held on 23 April 2010 in Doha, Qatar. Qatar were seeded among the top group.

Seeding
Seeding was announced on 22 April 2010. Qatar were automatically placed in Group A. FIFA rankings of April 2010 are given in brackets.

Venues
Members of the AFC Organising Committee for AFC Asian Cup 2011 have agreed the use of five stadiums for the 2011 tournament.

Since the tournament, Ahmed bin Ali Stadium was demolished. Khalifa International Stadium have been heavily modified. The Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, Thani bin Jassim Stadium and Suheim bin Hamad Stadium are the only largely unmodified stadium used for this tournament.

Officials
12 referees and 24 assistants were selected for the tournament, along with three stand-by referees:

Squads
Each country's final squad of 23 players was submitted by 28 December 2010.

Group stage
All times are Arabian Standard Time (AST) – UTC+3

Tie-breaking criteria
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss) and tie breakers are in following order:
 * 1) Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
 * 2) Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
 * 3) Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
 * 4) Goal difference in all the group matches;
 * 5) Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;
 * 6) Kicks from the penalty mark if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;
 * 7) Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches; (1 point for each yellow card, 3 points for each red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for each direct red card, 4 points for each yellow card followed by a direct red card)
 * 8) Drawing of lots.

Knockout stage
All times are Arabian Standard Time (AST) – UTC+3

Goalscorers
With five goals, Koo Ja-cheol was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 90 goals were scored by 60 different players, with three of them credited as own goals.

5 goals:


 * 🇰🇷 Koo Ja-cheol

4 goals:


 * 🇧🇭 Ismail Abdul-Latif
 * 🇰🇷 Ji Dong-won

3 goals:


 * 🇦🇺 Harry Kewell
 * 🇯🇵 Ryoichi Maeda
 * 🇯🇵 Shinji Okazaki
 * 🇺🇿 Alexander Geynrikh

2 goals:


 * 🇦🇺 Tim Cahill
 * 🇦🇺 Mile Jedinak
 * 🇧🇭 Faouzi Mubarak Aaish
 * 🇮🇳 Sunil Chhetri
 * 🇯🇵 Shinji Kagawa
 * 🇶🇦 Yusef Ahmed
 * 🇶🇦 Fábio César Montezine
 * 🇸🇾 Abdelrazaq Al Hussain
 * 🇺🇿 Odil Ahmedov
 * 🇺🇿 Ulugbek Bakayev
 * 🇺🇿 Server Djeparov

1 goal:


 * 🇦🇺 David Carney
 * 🇦🇺 Brett Emerton
 * 🇦🇺 Brett Holman
 * 🇦🇺 Robbie Kruse
 * 🇦🇺 Saša Ognenovski
 * 🇦🇺 Carl Valeri
 * 🇨🇳 Deng Zhuoxiang
 * 🇨🇳 Hao Junmin
 * 🇨🇳 Yu Hai
 * 🇨🇳 Zhang Linpeng
 * 🇮🇳 Gouramangi Singh
 * 🇮🇷 Arash Afshin
 * 🇮🇷 Karim Ansarifard
 * 🇮🇷 Iman Mobali
 * 🇮🇷 Mohammad Nouri
 * 🇮🇷 Gholamreza Rezaei
 * 🇮🇶 Karrar Jassim
 * 🇮🇶 Younis Mahmoud
 * 🇯🇵 Makoto Hasebe
 * 🇯🇵 Keisuke Honda
 * 🇯🇵 Hajime Hosogai
 * 🇯🇵 Masahiko Inoha
 * 🇯🇵 Tadanari Lee
 * 🇯🇵 Maya Yoshida
 * 🇯🇴 Hassan Abdel Fattah
 * 🇯🇴 Baha'a Abdul-Rahman
 * 🇯🇴 Odai Al-Saify
 * 🇯🇴 Bashar Bani Yaseen
 * Bader Al-Mutawa
 * 🇶🇦 Mohamed El Sayed
 * 🇶🇦 Bilal Mohammed
 * 🇶🇦 Sebastián Soria
 * Taisir Al-Jassim
 * 🇰🇷 Hwang Jae-won
 * 🇰🇷 Ki Sung-yueng
 * 🇰🇷 Son Heung-min
 * 🇰🇷 Yoon Bit-garam
 * 🇸🇾 Firas Al-Khatib
 * 🇸🇾 Mohamed Al Zeno
 * 🇺🇿 Maksim Shatskikh

1 own goal:
 * 🇸🇾 Ali Diab (for Jordan)

2 own goals:
 * Walid Abbas (for Iraq and Iran)

Awards
The AFC selected the MVP, top goalscorer, fair play award and four quality players of the tournament. They didn't officially announce the all-star team of this tournament.

Most Valuable Player
 * 🇯🇵 Keisuke Honda

Top Goalscorer
 * 🇰🇷 Koo Ja-cheol

Fair Play Award
 * 🇰🇷 south korea

Quality Players
 * 🇯🇵 Keisuke Honda
 * 🇰🇷 Park Ji-sung
 * 🇦🇺 Harry Kewell
 * 🇺🇿 Server Djeparov

Final standings

 * colspan="11"| Eliminated in the quarter-finals
 * colspan="11"| Eliminated in the quarter-finals


 * colspan="11"| Eliminated in group stage
 * colspan="11"| Eliminated in group stage

Source: AFC Technical Report
 * }

Official match ball
The Nike Total 90 Tracer was the official match ball of the tournament.

Official mascot
Official mascot were Saboog, Tmbki, Freha, Zkriti and Tranaa. They are a family of Jerboas, a rodent found in the deserts of Qatar. The characters are named after different locations in the north, south, east and west of Qatar.

Official song
For marketing of the event, the organisers opted for the slogan "Yalla Asia" with a song sung by international artists Jay Sean and Karl Wolf, featuring Radhika Vekaria. Yalla Asia was composed and written by Radhika Vekaria, Max Herman and Zoulikha El Fassi. Max Herman produced the record for Zoul Projects 2011. The music video features Football Free Stylers Abbas Farid and Soufiane Touzani.

The music video was released on January 9, 2011.

Sponsorship
Official Sponsors


 * Emirates
 * Epson
 * ING
 * Konica Minolta
 * Pocari Sweat
 * Qatar Petroleum
 * Qtel
 * Samsung
 * Toshiba
 * The Asahi Shimbun

Official Supporters


 * Alkass Sports Channels
 * FamilyMart
 * Hyundai Heavy Industries
 * Makita
 * Nike
 * Nikon

Controversies
The 2011 Asian Cup was not without controversies as concerns were risen about the extremely low crowds at most games not featuring hosts Qatar. The average attendance was just 12,006, much lower than the previous AFC Asian Cup tournaments. North Korea and the United Arab Emirates both had the lowest attendance numbers with approximately 3,000 and 6,000 attendances respectively. The final match between Japan and Australia saw as many as 3,000 to 10,000 fans with valid tickets denied entry to the stadium which then allegedly sparked small skirmishes among fans, "It was just incredibly badly handled. There were kids and families, not causing any problem, being confronted by riot police and being told they weren't getting in", according to Andy Richardson, Al Jazeera's sports correspondent. The AFC stated that the gates were closed early for security concerns and organisers did not anticipate an influx of Japanese and Australian fans. The organising committee has offered to refund all tickets not redeemed at the match.

After staging the 2006 Asian Games, this Asian Cup was being closely watched as an indicator to see how Qatar copes with hosting a major international football tournament in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.