Can our translators and writers find any betting value? Which Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players will be on international duty? Read about this, and some linguistic/cultural curiosities, from the biggest football tournament on the Asian continent.

The 18th edition of the AFC Asian Cup will be held in Qatar from 12th January to 10th February 2024. All-in Global is the #1 provider of translations and content writing for the iGaming industry and as many of you will know we will take any excuse to write about football.

It’s been just a month since we arranged our very own “World Championship of iGaming football” in Malta and the grief of losing the final against Enteractive is finally starting to fade. A deep dive into the next big football tournament, some bets won, and green Fantasy arrows could be the medicine needed.

For each group we have collaborated with one of our translators or writers representing one of the teams in the group. We asked them to analyse the chances of their team winning the group, the chances of their team winning the AFC Asian Cup, and which player will be the most valuable/most surprising in Qatar. We have also gathered odds from some of the bookmakers (our clients of course), namely Championship winner odds from Betvictor and match odds from Unibet. Our is on Japan to win this Asian Cup with the odds of 3.5 to 1 – their team looks the strongest by far.

GROUP A

Qatar

Odds of winning the Championship: 6 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Lebanon): 1.17 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

China

Our Chinese translator William has collaborated with All-in Global for a decade now. Apart from his thorough knowledge of iGaming, he has also localised many video games related to sports. This is what he said about Group A and the chances of the Chinese:

China’s national team has a great chance of qualifying from the group, they could even make it to the semi-finals. But we all agree that there’s little hope for China to win the championship – Japan and Korea are far more promising. My money is on Wu Lei being the MVP of China in this Championship.

Odds of winning the Championship: 26 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Tajikistan): 2.0 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Did you know that the Chinese translation for “foreigner” has evolved through time? It was initially translated as “outside people” or “far ocean people.” But after the Opium War in the 1840s, the preferred term changed to “barbarians.” Today the more neutral term “Laowai” is common. Lao translates literally to old, but is typically put in the beginning of a name to show respect. The Chinese character for “wai” can be translated as outside or ‘foreign.

Tajikistan

Odds of winning the Championship: 201 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against China): 4 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Lebanon

Odds of winning the Championship: 151 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Qatar): 17 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

GROUP B

Australia

Odds of winning the Championship: 6 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against India): 1.03 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Uzbekistan

Odds of winning the Championship: 34 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Syria): 1.62 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Syria

Odds of winning the Championship: 67 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Uzbekistan): 5.5 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

India

Our Hindi vendor Dinesh is a content creator and translator with several years of experience in iGaming and sports content. Here is his prediction for group B:

To be honest I would be satisfied if  our “Blue Tigers” can fight their way to a third place in this strong group. It would be a miracle for India to win the Asian Cup. I predict Sunil Chetteri with his vast experience and goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu as our key players in Qatar.

Odds of winning the Championship: 201 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Australia): 41 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

GROUP C

Iran

Our Farsi translator Amir is an iGaming specialist and indie gaming enthusiast. He is looking forward to the championship in January and confident on behalf of his team.

Odds of winning the Championship: 7 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Palestine): 1.25 to 1

Fantasy assets: Saman Ghoddos (Brentford) could miss GW 21, 22, 23 and 24 but it might be a stretch to call him a Fantasy asset to be honest.

Did you know that there is a movie rated at 7,3 at IMDb about female Iranian football fans being excluded from stadiums? The drama/comedy was released in 2006 and features real life footage of the match between Iran and Bahrain match Tehran in 2005 where the main characters dress up like men in a dangerous attempt to enter. It’s called Offside!.

United Arab Emirates

Odds of winning the Championship: 26 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Hong Kong): 1.17 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Hong Kong

Odds of winning the Championship: 251 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against United Arab Emirates): 14 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Palestine

Odds of winning the Championship: 101 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Iran): 10 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

GROUP D

Japan

Odds of winning the Championship: 3.5 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Vietnam): 1.02 to 1

Fantasy assets: Takehiro Tomiyasu (Arsenal) could miss the matches vs. Crystal Palace (GW 21), Nottingham Forest (GW 22), Liverpool (GW 23) and West Ham (GW 24). Japan is considered the big favourite to go all the way and lift the trophy at Lusail Stadium so Kaoru Mitoma is likely to also miss Brighton’s matches against Wolves (H), Luton (B), Crystal Palace (H) and Spurs (B). Same goes for Wataru Endō (Liverpool) who is facing Bournemouth (A), Chelsea (H), Arsenal (A) and Burnley (H).

Did you know that Takehiro Tomiyasu has made a video explaining how to say football clichés in Japanese?

Indonesia

Imam is the name of one of our world-class Indonesian iGaming writers. His passion in life is digital marketing – and football. When asked his opinion about Indonesia in the Asian Cup he gave us a very detailed reply:

Odds of winning the Championship: 251 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Iraq): 8 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Iraq

Odds of winning the Championship: 26 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Indonesia): 1.29 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Vietnam

Odds of winning the Championship: 126 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Japan): 46 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

GROUP E

South Korea

Odds of winning the Championship: 7 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Bahrain): 1.17 to 1

Fantasy assets: Although South Korea has a higher odds than Japan, Qatar and Australia to win the Asian Cup, Son Heung-min (Spurs) – one of the most owned Fantasy asset of them all – is likely to miss Spurs’ matches against Man United (A), Brentford (H), Everton (A) and Brighton (H). Hwang Hee-chan (Wolves), another popular Fantasy asset as of late, is likely to miss the matches against Brighton (A), Man United (H), Chelsea (A) and Brentford (H).

Did you know that Son Heung-min officially become a year younger in his homeland after South Korea changed their traditional age-counting method? That must be good news for any footballer in his prime years.

Malaysia

Odds of winning the Championship: 201 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Jordan): 4.75 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Jordan

Odds of winning the Championship: 67 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Malaysia): 1.73 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Bahrain

Odds of winning the Championship: 67 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against South Korea): 14 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

GRPUP F

Saudi Arabia

Odds of winning the Championship: 7 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Oman): 1.5 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Thailand

We have several world-class Thai iGaming translators at All-in Global, but according to them “Thai people don’t follow the national team they just follow the Premier League.” So we decided to ask instead Nat Sarawoot Hankla which is a football fanatic friend. And although Thailand are favourites in their first match against Kyrgyzstan, Nat (in the middle) believes it will get too difficult against Saudi Arabia and Oman.

I don’t think the Thai national team can advance to the next round. Thai football develops very slowly. We made it to the Round of 16 in 2019 and came 3rd once but that was all the way back in 1972. My current hero is Chanathip Songkrasin, we call him the Messi of Thailand.

Odds of winning the Championship: 151 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Kyrgyzstan): 1.75 to 1 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Did you know the author of this blog post will support Thailand in the Asian Cup? He will be in the Krabi region playing beach football before or after Thailand takes on Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan and Oman in Group F.

Kyrgyzstan

Odds of winning the Championship: 251 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Thailand): 4.65 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

Did you know that in a few years Kyrgyzstan will be the only independent Turkic-speaking country that exclusively uses the Cyrillic script? It was written in the Arabic alphabet until the twentieth century and Latin script was introduced and adopted in 1928. But Stalin ordered the script to be changed to Cyrilic in 1941.

Oman

Odds of winning the Championship: 51 to 1

Odds of winning their first match (against Saudi Arabia): 6.0 to 1

Fantasy assets: No players from the Premier League.

All-in Global is widely considered as the #1 language service provider for the iGaming industry. Contact salesteam@all-in.global if you need to reach a wider audience with your content through translation and multilingual content writing you can bet on.