AFC Women's Asian Cup 2022: From Australia to India - Where does each participant sit in the Fifa Ranking?

The AFC Women's Asian Cup 2022 is set to kick off on January 20, 2022 in India. The final of the tournament has been scheduled for February 6, 2022. All the matches will be played across three venues in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Pune. 

The 2022 tournament has been expanded to 12 teams, with three groups comprising of four teams each. The top two teams will directly qualify for the quarter-final stage, while the two best third-placed teams will also progress. 

This is the second time India are hosting the tournament after the 1979 edition wherein they finished runners-up to Chinese Taipei. 

However, this time around, India have to face record-winners China PR and a formidable Chinese Taipei side in Group A. The other participant in the group happens to be Iran.

Meanwhile, in Group B, we have Australia who won the tournament in 2010 and were the runners-up on three other occasions (2006, 2014, 2018). They are one of the title contenders and will fight against Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia in the group stages. Thailand have been champion once and occupied the second spot on three occasions (1975, 1977, 1981) in the past. Whereas, Philippines and Indonesia are yet to taste significant success in the tournament.

Japan, the defending champions, find themselves in Group C. They will be pretty motivated coming into the tournament as they will look to lift the title for the third successive time. However, they will face stiff resistance in the group stage from South Korea whose best finish in the tournament came in 2003 when they finished third. The other two participating teams in the group are Vietnam and Myanmar.

Let us have a look at the FIFA rankings of all the participating teams and their previous best performances.