Saintfiet leaves the Philippines

Saintfiet, who replaced former head coach Michael Weiss in February, is returning to Africa to lead the Mali national team.

Scheduled to run until June 2025, the AFC Asian Qualifiers™ – Road to 26 features three groups of six teams and guarantees qualification to the 23rd FIFA World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the top two finishers of each group. Two more berths are available via the AFC Asian Qualifiers™ – Road to 26 Playoff, with an additional opportunity up for grabs at an InterContinental Playoff.

Eight teams go into Matchday 3 still in the hunt to emerge as group champions that will take them through to the next stage, so join the-AFC.com as we preview Saturday’s matches.

The Young Matildas will, for the second successive edition of the global showpiece, open their campaign against the host nation and will be hoping for a winning start after having defeated Costa Rica in their first match of the tournament two years ago.

Almarzooqi came on in the 84th minute and three minutes later, the defender - played on by Cecilia Nyama’s instinctive pass - beat her marker before nutmegging Myawady keeper Ei Sandar Zaw.

The result left Abu Dhabi Country Club with two wins, bringing them one step closer to reaching the group stage of the competition ahead of their final fixture against Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr, who defeated Young Elephants of Laos 3-0.

Even though the result put them in the difficult position of needing a win against group leaders FC Nasaf in their final game, Justin wants his side to take the positives from the match against APF and start building towards Saturday’s winner-takes-all encounter.

DPR Korea have twice lifted the title, Japan were champions in 2018 and runners-up two years ago, Korea Republic were third in the 2010 edition while Australia will be bidding to improve on the quarter-final finishes of 2002 and 2004.