The 1988 AFC Asian Cup was the 9th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international association football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in Qatar between 2 December and 18 December 1988. Saudi Arabia defeated South Korea in the final match in Doha.
Qualification
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:left;"
|-
! Team
! Qualified as
! Qualified on
! Previous appearance
|-
| || || ||
|-
| || || 16 December 1984 ||
|-
| || || 17 February 1988 ||
|-
| || || 16 February 1988 ||
|-
| || || 18 April 1988 ||
|-
| || || 18 April 1988 || 0 (debut)
|-
| || || 3 June 1988 ||
|-
| || || 4 June 1988 ||
|-
| || || 22 June 1988 || 0 (debut)
|-
| || || 22 June 1988 ||
|}
Squads
Venues
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! class="unsortable" | City
! Stadium
! Capacity
|-
! rowspan="2"| Doha
| Al-Ahly Stadium
| rowspan="2"| 20,000
|-
| Qatar SC Stadium
|}
First round
All times are Qatar time (UTC+3)
Group A
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Group B
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Knockout stage
All times are Qatar time (UTC+3)
Semi-finals
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Third place play-off
Final
Statistics
Goalscorers
With three goals, South Korea's Lee Tae-Ho is the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 40 goals were scored by 28 different players, with only one of them credited as an own goal.
3 goals:
- Lee Tae-ho
2 goals:
- Ma Lin
- Xie Yuxin
- Farshad Pious
- Byun Byung-joo
- Chung Hae-won
- Hwang Sun-hong
- Kim Joo-sung
- Adel Khamis
- Mansour Muftah
- Khalid Salman
1 goal:
- Fahad Mohamed
- Gao Sheng
- Mai Chao
- Zhang Xiaowen
- Karim Bavi
- Adel Abbas
- Mansour Basha
- Saleh Al-Mutlaq
- Mohamed Al-Suwaiyed
- Fahad Al-Bishi
- Yousuf Jazea'a
- Majed Abdullah
- Walid Abu Al-Sel
- Walid Al-Nasser
- Hassan Mohamed
- Abdulaziz Mohamed
1 own goal
- Muhsin Musabah (for Qatar)
Awards
Most Valuable Player
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! style="width:25%;" | Goalkeeper
! style="width:25%;" | Defenders
! style="width:25%;" | Midfielders
! style="width:25%;" | Forward
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| Zhang Huikang<br /> Abdullah Al-Deayea
| Mohamed Al-Jawad<br /> Saleh Nu'eimeh<br /> Park Kyung-hoon<br /> Chung Yong-hwan
| Xie Yuxin<br /> Mohamed Salim<br /> Mahboub Juma'a<br /> Sirous Ghayeghran<br /> Chung Hae-won<br /> Adel Khamis<br /> Abdulaziz Al-Hajeri<br /> Byun Byung-joo
| Youssef Al-Thunayan<br /> Majed Abdullah<br /> Kim Joo-sung<br /> Wang Baoshan
|-
|}