The 2026 Asian Women's Football Championship is entering its final matches. The first semi-final match will witness defending champion China against host Australia, the 2010 champion, at Perth Stadium on March 18.
The Chinese women's team won the championship spectacularly in 2022. They are aiming to win their 10th title in the continent. The Chinese team has led Group B with 3 consecutive wins. In the quarterfinals, they defeated the Taiwanese women's team (China) after 120 minutes.
However, the Australian women's football team is also a formidable opponent. The host team is ranked 2nd in Group A, behind the South Korean women's team. But in the quarterfinals, the Australian women's team excellently defeated the DPRK women's team with a score of 2-1, to enter the semi-finals.
The remaining semi-final match takes place between the Korean women's team vs Japan. These are two teams that are in very high form at the tournament. The Korean women's team topped Group A, then defeated the Uzbekistan women's team 6-0 in the quarterfinals. The ambition of the Korean women's team is to win the continental championship, after only winning the runner-up title 4 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Japanese women's team is the only team that has not conceded a goal since the beginning of the tournament. Nils Nielsen's team once defeated the Vietnamese women's team 4-0 in the group stage. In the quarter-finals, they continued to overcome another Southeast Asian team, the Philippines, with a score of 7-0.
The four teams China, Japan, South Korea and Australia also won the first tickets of Asia to the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil.
With 4 teams losing in the quarterfinals, they still have a chance to win a ticket to the World Cup next year, through the play-off round. In this round, the Uzbekistan women's team will meet the Philippines women's team, and the Taiwan women's team (China) will meet the DPRK women's team.
The two winning teams in the play-off round will participate in the 2027 World Cup. Meanwhile, the two losing teams still have a chance to participate in the world's biggest playground through the Intercontinental play-off round.
