Baghdad is preparing for the launch of the West Asian Olympic Championship
The cities of Baghdad and Karbala are preparing for the launch of the National Earthlink West Asian U-23 Championship, which will be held by the Iraqi Federation until June 20.
The opening day of the tournament will witness the holding of three matches, the first starting at 5:45 pm Iraqi time at Al-Madina International Stadium in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, between Amman and Lebanon for the third group, then at 7:45 the Syrian and Palestinian teams play in the second group that hosts Karbala International Stadium all its competitions, and finally Al-Madina Stadium will return to host the third match at 9:45 pm between Jordan and Iraq for the first group.
On the other hand, the remaining three teams: Yemen, Iran and the UAE will rest in the first round, and appear in the second round scheduled for Wednesday.
On Sunday, press conferences were held for the coaches of the participating teams, in addition to the two technical meetings of the Baghdad and Karbala groups, during which Dr. Bashir Abdul Khaleq, the Asian observer for the Baghdad matches, and Ali Jibril, the Asian observer for the Karbala group, explained all the administrative instructions in the presence of the residents of the Asian referees, Youssef Mirza Hussein Al-Ghadanfari.
According to the tournament system, the group stage will be held from one stage, then the champion of each group, in addition to the owner of the second best position, will qualify for the semi-finals, after which the two winners will move from the two matches of this round to the final match.
The fourth edition of the tournament comes as an extension of a series of tournaments for the West Asian Federation, which were hosted by the Iraqi Federation, which previously hosted the second youth championship in 2021, whose matches were distributed between Basra, Erbil and Baghdad, and before that the cities of Karbala and Erbil hosted the ninth men’s championship competitions in 2019.
It is noteworthy that the Saudi Federation hosted, during November 2022, the third edition, and the Saudi team won the title, in return for the Qatari team coming in second place, and Syria third.
The Saudi Federation had previously hosted the second edition of the tournament in 2021, and at that time the Jordanian national team won the title at the expense of the host, who finished runner-up, while the first edition was held in 2015 in Qatar, and the Syrian team won second, Qatar third, and Iran first.