The 1996 AFC Asian Cup was the 11th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in the United Arab Emirates between 4 and 21 December 1996. Saudi Arabia defeated hosts United Arab Emirates in the final match in Abu Dhabi. As the runners-up, the United Arab Emirates represented the AFC in the 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup as the winners Saudi Arabia had qualified automatically as host. Qualification 33 teams participated in a preliminary tournament. It was divided into 10 groups and the first-placed team of each group thus qualified. The qualifying teams were: Notes: 1 Bold indicates champion for that year 2 Italic indicates host Squads Tournament summary The tournament began with host United Arab Emirates took up against South Korea in group A, where the Emiratis played in a 1–1 draw. Subsequently, Kuwait was surprisingly held draw by Indonesia, even being taken lead by the Indonesians. However, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and South Korea eventually established its position, with South Korea finished in third place due to losing to Kuwait and inferior by goal differences and qualified only as one of two best third-placed team, while the host comfortably seized first place, leaving Indonesia in bottom after two consecutive defeats to South Korea and the UAE. Group B easily saw Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq took three leading places in their group, with both teams managed to beat Thailand, which finished bottom with three defeats, and also each three of them suffered one defeat one to another. Iraq only finished third due to inferior goal difference, but qualified as the best third-place finisher. Meanwhile, group C was more entertaining, with both three last finishers grabbed one win each only. Debutant Uzbekistan, on its just first ever competitive participation of a major tournament and was regarded low, stunned entire of Asia by beating China with two late goals to gain three points in the team's just first competitive match. Defending champions Japan however emerged as the only team to collect all three victories, while China recovered following the defeat to beat Syria. The Syrians grabbed its only win, a 2–1 win over Uzbekistan, but the team's poor performance, with two defeats to Japan and China, cost the team from reaching the quarter-finals. Uzbekistan finished last despite the win over China, and was eliminated