Unlike the previous tournament where all teams entered the final tournament, qualifiers will be held from 1 to 10 December 2018.[3] The draw for the qualifiers was held on 30 August 2018.[4]
The 12 teams are drawn into four groups of three teams. The teams are seeded according to their performance in the 2017 AFC U-20 Futsal Championship final tournament, with the hosts automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.
Players born after 1 January 1999 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of 14 players, minimum two of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 27.1 and 27.2).[2]
The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 11.5):[2]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) was used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Articles 15.1 and 16.1).[2]
