\n<\/p>\n
The AFC Women\u2019s Asian Cup kicks off at the beginning of March, and three of our players are set to be involved.<\/p>\n
Steph Catley, Kyra Cooney-Cross and Caitlin Foord have all been called up by Australia to represent their nation on home soil.<\/p>\n
This acts as the final stage of Asian qualification for the 2026 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil, as well as the penultimate stage of Asian qualification for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The Matildas will play Group A matches against Philippines on Sunday March 1, Iran on Thursday, March 5 and South Korea on Sunday, March 8, with all matches kicking off at 9am UK time.<\/p>\n
The competition is made up of three groups with teams looking to finish in the top two places of their group to qualify for the knockout stages. The two best third-placed teams will also go through.<\/p>\n
Once group matches are concluded on Tuesday, March 10, the quarter-finals run from Friday, March 13 to Saturday, March 14, the semi-finals from Tuesday, March 17 to Wednesday, 18 and the final will be played on Saturday, March 21 at Stadium Australia in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Other venues for matches are Western Sydney Stadium, Perth Stadium, Perth Rectangular Stadium, and Gold Coast Stadium.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, March 19, there will also be \u2018play-in matches\u2019 for World Cup and inter-confederation play-offs between the losers of the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
All of this means that, should Australia go all the way to the final, the three Gunners involved will miss our matches against London City Lionesses and West Ham United in the Barclays Women\u2019s Super League.<\/p>\n
China are the Asian Cup\u2019s defending champions and record holders with nine titles, most recently in 2022.<\/p>\n
Australia will have appeared in this tournament on eight occasions and won it once in 2010, back when Catley and Foord were among the country\u2019s youth teams!<\/p>\n
Under former Gunners manager Joe Montemurro, they\u2019ll be looking to improve on their 2022 outing, when their quarter-fianl exit was their earliest departure from the tournament since 2006.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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