As one of 13 seeds, Vietnam -- the only team in Southeast Asia region -- directly comes to round two of the Asian qualifiers including 35 teams of the 2012 London Olympic Games.
They will fight it out for three spots in the men's competition to advance to the finals in London.
Participating teams in the men's competition are Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen. Jordan are the notable absentees.
Of them, 22 lowest ranked teams, based on the qualifiers and final round of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, were drawn to play in a home-and-away format on February 23, 2011 and March 9, 2011, with the winners making it to round two.
The 11 winners will join the 13 seeds in round two, which will also be played over two legs on June 19 and 23, 2011.
Winners from the 12 ties will be drawn into three groups of four for round three, with teams playing each other home and away across six matchdays from September 21, 2011 through to March 14, 2012. Top team in each group will automatically earn a place at the Olympics.
The runners-up in each group will then compete in the playoffs, with the three teams playing each other in a round-robin group at a centralized venue. The winners will then compete against the Confederation of African Football’s fourth-ranked team for a berth at London 2012.
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