TEHRAN – Iran football 5-a-side left Tehran Saturday morning to participate at the IBSA Blind Football Asian Championships in Pattaya, Thailand.

Reigning Asian champions and world number three China are in Group A along with hosts Thailand, South Korea and newcomers India.

In group B, 2017 Asian silver medalists and world number team Iran will face Japan, Malaysia and debutants Oman.

The 2019 IBSA Blind Football Asian Championships will be held in Pattaya, Thailand, from Sept. 30th to Oct. 7th.

Bringing together eight national teams, these will be the largest ever Asian Championships and will see two teams - India and Oman - make their debut at official IBSA championships.

The top two teams at the competition will qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

The 2019 Asian Championships are the 8th edition of the event, which took place for the first time in 2005 in Vietnam.

“We know that Iran have a difficult task in the competition because teams like Thailand and Malaysia as well as China, Japan and South Korea compete in the games with the aim of winning a spot at the Paralympics,” Iran coach Javad Felfeli said.

“We’ve had good training camps in the previous months but failed to arrange friendly matches. We wanted to play Spain and Turkey but the matches were canceled because they announced a change to their schedule,” he added.