The hosts, however, will have to brace themselves for another tough encounter as they will face Syria, who defeated Maldives 3-2 earlier on Friday, in their final qualifying tie on Sunday.

Syria, on four points after having played to a 1-1 draw in their opener against Lebanon on Wednesday, will have to win to seal top spot and confirm their place in the 2020 Finals.

Syria and Lebanon, meanwhile, played to a 1-1 draw in Wednesday's other match.

Group C is the first of 11 to have kicked off the qualifying campaign where the group winners and four best runners-up will join hosts Uzbekistan in the 2020 Finals. The remaining groups will be contested in November.

Group C of the Qualifiers will swing into action earlier than the rest with Syria, Lebanon, Maldives and Tajikistan aiming to secure the automatic slot.

The remaining 10 groups will see qualifying action in November.

At the AFC Competitions Committee’s first meeting of the 2019-2023 cycle chaired by Dr. Tran Quoc Tuan, they selected Uzbekistan and Bahrain as they were considered to have the most appropriate facilities for age-group football.

The opportunity to assist Uzbekistan’s football development – combined with the availability of the necessary facilities – was considered important while Bahrain, having bid to host both events, achieved the highest evaluation points on the inspection visit for the U-16 event.

The U-19 tournament will be played between October 14 and 31, 2020 while the U-16 Championship will take place between September 16 and October 3, 2020.

The AFC Solidarity Cup, which provides more competitive matches for the bottom 10 ranked countries (the six eliminated in the first round of the Joint Asian Qualifiers and the bottom four teams in the second round) will be played between November 30, 2020 and December 13, 2020 – once the final round of qualifiers for the AFC Asian Cup China 2023 are concluded.

The Committee also agreed with a recommendation that in 2020, the AFC Champions League Round of 16 matches in the West Zone should be moved from May 25/26 and June 15/16 to May 18/19 and May 25/26, 2020.

It was a dramatic end to a final which had seen India reduced to 10 men and Bangladesh nine.

The final started promisingly for India, who took the lead in just the second minute through Vikram Partap Singh.

Beaten 4-2 by UAE just six days prior, Iraq overcame the sending off of Abdulrazzaq Kadah to force the shootout, where they netted four of their five penalties to secure the trophy.

Earlier, Jordan claimed a 3-0 win over host nation Palestine to finish the tournament in third place.

Needing only to avoid defeat to hold off the hosts in the final match of the round-robin competition, Iran fell behind to a first-half goal from promising Tajikistan striker Rustam Soirov but hit back with Rahimabadi’s 80th-minute leveller to become the Central Asian champions.

Earlier in the day, Uzbekistan beat Turkmenistan 2-0 to finish third in the competition, which serves as preparation for the forthcoming 2020 AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers.