India women's football team paired with Kyrgyz Republic and Turkmenistan for 2024 Olympic qualifiers
The Women's Football Round 1 drawings for the Asian qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympics have been released. India was paired with Turkmenistan and the Kyrgyz Republic to make up Group G. A total of 26 teams are competing to advance to the next stage.
There are seven groups in the first round of the Asian qualifiers, five of which have four teams each and two have three. Round-robin style will be used for each group, and the winners will move on to the next round. The games are scheduled to take place between April 3 and April 11, 2023, in centralised locations.
The top five teams in each group will be combined with the seven group winners to form three groups of four teams for the second round of qualifiers. The top seeds and best-ranked runner-up from this round will also move on to the third and final round. These games are expected to take place between October 23 and October 31 in 2023.
The four remaining teams will be split into pairs for the final round of the Asian qualifiers, and the winners of each combination will get a ticket to the Paris 2024 Olympics. The dates for these games will fall sometime around February 2024.
The Indian women's national team has only ever made it to the second round of the qualifications once in its history, and that was back in 2018 for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It has not yet appeared on the Olympic stage.
India hosted the Women's AFC Asian Cup in 2022. Unfortunately, a Covid-19 epidemic inside the camp prompted the hosts to leave after just one game. After being eliminated in the semifinals, the squad, in a first, was unable to claim the SAFF Championship.
India is presently ranked 12th among Asian teams in the most recent FIFA Women's World Ranking, which was published on December 9th, 2022. Its group mates Turkmenistan and the Kyrgyz Republic are rated 18th and 22nd, respectively.
Round 1 Draws for the Women's Football tournament at Paris 2024 Olympics Asian Qualifiers:
Group A: Uzbekistan, Jordan, Timor-Leste, Bhutan.
Group B: Myanmar, IR Iran, Bangladesh, Maldives.
Group C: Vietnam, Nepal, Palestine, Afghanistan.
Group D: Thailand, Mongolia, Singapore, Sri Lanka.
Group E: Philippines, Hong Kong, Tajikistan, Pakistan.
Group F: Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Lebanon.
Group G: India, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan.