AFF Suzuki Cup football 2016: Full match schedule and all you need to know

The 2016 AFF Suzuki Cup is the 11th edition of the Asean Football Championship, which is jointly hosted by Philippines and Myanmar, and organised by the Asean Football Federation.

The eight-team tournament will start from this Saturday, 19 November, and end on 17 December.

IBTimes Singapore brings you all that you need to know about this year's Suzuki Cup.

Participating Teams

Eight teams from the Asean region will participate in the final stages of the biennial tournament. The list includes Thailand, who will defend their title in Philippines and Myanmar.

The top-seven ranked Asean teams automatically qualified for the tournament while the remaining one spot was decided after a qualification round.

This year, Cambodia topped the table in the four-team qualifying tournament with nine points from three games edging out Laos, Brunei and Timor Leste at home in October. The hosts defeated all the other teams in the group while scoring eight goals.

Notably, Thailand and Singapore have won the tournament the most number of times (four), with the War Elephants being the most recent winners (2014).

Malaysia (2010) and Vietnam (2008) have won the title once each while the other four teams in this year's tournament will eye their maiden title.

Group Stages

Eight teams in the tournament are divided into two groups, Group A and Group B. Each team will face the remaining three teams from the group once. The top two teams from each group qualify for the knockout stages.

12 matches will be played in the group stages, which will end on 26 November.

Each team will be awarded three points for a win and 1 for a draw.

In the case of tied points at the end of the group stages, goal difference comes into play. If the difference is also same, then the team which has scored the most number of goals will make the progress.

If a team cannot be singled out with the above mentioned criterias, the progress to the next stage will be determined by the result of the direct match between the concerned teams.

Group A: Indonesia, Philippines (co-hosts), Singapore, Thaialand

Group B: Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar (co-hosts), Vietnam 

All the Group A matches will be held in Philippines, starting 19 November while the Group B matches kick off from 20 November in Myanmar.

Knockout Stages

Top two teams from the two groups will compete in the semi-final (SF) of the tournament, which will be played over two legs.

SF1 will be played between the runner-up of Group A and the winner of Group B from 3 December.

The Group A runner-up will host the first leg while the reverse leg will be played at the home venue of Group B winner.

SF2 will be played between the runner-up of Group B and the winner of Group A from 4 December.

The final will also be a two-legged battle between the winners of the two semi-finals.

Venues

There are four venues across Philippines and Myanmar for this year's Suzuki Cup.

The two venues in Philippines are Philippine Sports Stadium, Bulacan and Ridzal Memorial Stadium, Manila.

The Myanmar venues are Thuwunna Stadium, Yangon and Wunna Theikdi Stadium, Nay Pyi Taw.

Squads

The eight teams are yet to confirm their final list from the preliminary squads that were announced earlier.

Schedule