This is a list of hat-tricks in the AFC Asian Cup, that being when a player scores three or more goals in a tournament match of the AFC Asian Cup (not including qualification matches). Hat-tricks have occurred nineteen times across the eighteen editions.
The first tournament was held in 1956, however no hat-tricks were scored in the first four competitions. The first instance was in 1972, where Hossein Kalani scored three goals for Iran against Iraq in the group stage. Later on in the same tournament again for Iran, Ali Jabbari scored three goals inside nine minutes to defeat Thailand 3–2. The first time a player would score four goals in a match would be 1980, where Behtash Fariba achieved the feat in a 7–0 win for Iran over Bangladesh. After 1980, three tournaments went by without a hat-trick before Ali Daei scored four goals for Iran in a 6–2 win over South Korea in 1996, also marking the first time at least three goals were scored in a match in the knockout stage. Two tournaments later in 2004, another knockout stage hat-trick was achieved by Ali Karimi for Iran in a 4–3 win against South Korea, again in the quarter-finals. In the 2023 tournament, Akram Afif became the first player to register a hat-trick in the final of the competition, scoring all three of Qatar's goals in their 3–1 victory against Jordan; he was also the first player whose hat-trick consisted solely of penalty kicks.
Iran have scored the most hat-tricks with six, while Bangladesh and Uzbekistan have conceded the most, with three each. No player has ever scored multiple hat-tricks in the Asian Cup, and every hat-trick scorer has had their side go on to win their match.
Hat-tricks +Key4Player scored four goals in the match No. Player Time of goals Representing Result Opponent Round Date Ref. 1972Hossein Kalani34', 70', 78' 3–0Group stage9 May 1972Ali Jabbari80', 86', 88' 3–213 May 1972 1976Gholam Hossein Mazloumi63', 74', 80' 8–0Group stage8 June 1976 1980Behtash Fariba411', 34', 80', 82' 7–0Group stage22 September 1980Choi Soon-ho26', 53', 78' (pen.) 4–124 September 1980Shen Xiangfu1', 5', 72' 6–025 September 1980Xu Yonglai16', 79', 89' 1996Ali Daei466', 76', 83', 89' (pen.) 6–2Quarter-finals16 December 1996 2000Akinori Nishizawa14', 25', 49' 8–1Group stage17 October 2000Naohiro Takahara18', 20', 57'Lee Dong-gook30', 76', 90+1' 3–019 October 2000Mohammad Al-Shalhoub35', 78', 86' 5–020 October 2000 2004Ali Karimi10', 20', 77' 4–3Quarter-finals31 July 2004 2011Ismail Abdullatif416', 19', 35', 77' 5–2Group stage14 January 2011Shinji Okazaki8', 13', 80' 5–017 January 2011 2015Hamza Al-Dardour435', 45+2', 75', 80' 5–1Group stage16 January 2015 2019Almoez Ali49', 11', 55', 60' 6–0Group stage13 January 2019Vitalij Lux24', 51', 77' 3–116 January 2019 2023Akram Afif22' (pen.), 73' (pen.), 90+5' (pen.) 3–1Final10 February 2024
By nation +NationHat-tricks632221111
References