2006 AFC Women's Asian Cup

The 2006 AFC Women's Asian Cup was a women's football tournament for women's national teams from countries affiliated to the Asian Football Confederation. It was the 15th installment of the AFC Women's Asian Cup.

Unlike the previous tournament which was held every two years, the tournament has been moved back a year to 2006. The structure of the competition has changed for this tournament, with a qualifying tournament and a separate championship tournament.

The four qualifiers of the sub-tournament (Vietnam, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand) went on to compete for the Championship proper against the four automatic finalists (China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea). Australia were added to the final tournament following their switch from Oceania Football Confederation to the Asian confederation. The finals of the tournament were held in Australia in July 2006 - the hosting rights were originally given to Japan, but after Australia moved conferences, they were given the hosting rights. All matches in the main tournament were held in Adelaide.

The tournament also acted as Asia's qualifying tournament for the 2007 World Cup. Two spots were available in addition to the automatic spot given to China PR as World Cup hosts. China PR won the tournament, beating hosts Australia in the final. Thus, Australia took the first qualifying spot, while North Korea defeated Japan in the third place play-off to take second place. Japan now play off with the third-placed team in the CONCACAF region, despite beating China in the group stages.

Read more about 2006 AFC Women's Asian Cup:  Qualification, Teams, First Round, Knockout Stages, Awards

Famous quotes containing the words women, asian and/or cup:

    The belief that established science and scholarship—which have so relentlessly excluded women from their making—are “objective” and “value-free” and that feminist studies are “unscholarly,” “biased,” and “ideological” dies hard. Yet the fact is that all science, and all scholarship, and all art are ideological; there is no neutrality in culture!
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    Sunday morning may be cheery enough, with its extra cup of coffee and litter of Sunday newspapers, but there is always hanging over it the ominous threat of 3 P.M., when the sun gets around to the back windows and life stops dead in its tracks.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)