Hosts Australia will be hoping to avoid twice former Asian Cup champions South Korea when the draw for the 2015 finals is made at Sydney Opera House on Wednesday.
The Socceroos were named top seeds for the draw and will definitely avoid defending champions Japan, Iran and Uzbekistan as the other top seeds, but the South Koreans loom as dangerous potential group stage rivals.
World Cup semi-finalists in 2002, perennial Asian powerhouse South Korea were pushed out of the top four by the decision to make Australia top seeds and are in the second rank with United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Four groups of four will be drawn for the tournament, which takes place in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Newcastle from Jan. 9-31 next year.
Iraq, who won the 2007 Asian Cup, are in the third pot of teams along with Oman, China and Qatar, while the fourth rank is made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, North Korea and the as-yet undecided winners of the Asian Challenge Cup.
Australia, who joined the Asian Football Confederation in 2006, were Asian Cup quarter-finalists in 2007 and runners up at the 2011 tournament in Qatar.
They are hoping to become the first host nation to win the title since Japan won the first of their four Asian Cups on home soil in 1992.
Former Italy and Juventus great Alessandro del Piero, who has played for the last two seasons at Sydney FC, has been named a global ambassador for the tournament.
"I am very proud to be associated with the biggest football tournament ever held in Australia, the country that has become my home for the past two years," Del Piero said in a news release.