ESPN adds Asia World Cup Qualifiers to schedule

Just in time for the next round of World Cup Qualifiers next weekend, ESPN has added the rights to the region’s World Cup 2018 Qualifiers to its already extensive list of properties. In the past, One World Sports has shown qualifiers from Asia but not for the current Russia 2018 tournament.

The AFC qualifiers enter their third Round on September 1 with 12 teams divided into 2 groups, which will play a full home-and-away series of matches to be completed by September 2017. The top 2 teams from each group will automatically qualify for Russia World Cup 2018 while the two third-place nations will play in a home-and-away playoff match for the right to play the 4th-placed nation from CONCACAF’s final series of rounds for a place in the World Cup tournament.

The 3rd Round groups for AFC Qualifications are:

GROUP A –

China
Iran
Qatar
South Korea
Syria
Uzbekistan

GROUP B –

Australia
Iraq
Japan
Saudi Arabia
Thailand
United Arab Emirates

For the first two matchdays, all matches are scheduled for ESPN’s streaming service ESPN3, which is also accessible with your Sling Orange login credentials.

Here’s the schedule for September’s games (All times Eastern USA):

Thursday, September 1:

Australia vs. Iraq, 6:30am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

Japan vs. United Arab Emirates, 6:35am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

South Korea vs. China, 7am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

Tuesday, September 6:

China vs. Iran, 7:30am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

Thailand vs. Japan, 8:15am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

United Arab Emirates vs. Australia, 11:30am, ESPN3 and Sling Orange (free trial)

Ed Perovic is the publisher of soccertvblog.com – a source for schedules and US TV information for major European Leagues and International competitions.