If we finish in the top two of the current group featuring China, Iraq and Qatar there's still Round 4--another eight home and away fixtures--to come.
Commencing in September this year, Round 4 involves two groups of five teams each battling it out for a place in the World Cup finals. Only the top two teams from each group directly qualify, while the third place teams play each other in a decider in October next year. Five teams in total go through to the finals in South Africa.
Although there's only been two games played in Round 3 so far, we can probably make some fairly safe predictions about the composition of the two Round 4 groups.
From Round 3 Group 1:
AustraliaThere's no real doubt that Australia will qualify, but the contest for the other spot will be tight. After Iraq's loss to Qatar, China must be slight favourites.
China PR
From Round 3 Group 2:
JapanWhile Oman and Thailand might put a bit of pressure on these teams, they are both just too strong. The only question after Bahrain's recent home win over Japan is who will finish on top.
Bahrain
From Round 3 Group 3:
Korea RepublicIt'll be a fairly easy ride for the two Koreas. As the best of the third seeds in the groups Jordan are a handy team, but they've already lost at home to Korea DPR so their chances look bleak.
Korea DPR
From Round 3 Group 4:
Saudi ArabiaThese two are utter power houses against relative minnows in Singapore and Lebanon. Uzbekistan is a team on the rise with good firepower up front and definitely one to watch out for in the later stages.
Uzbekistan
From Round 3 Group 5:
United Arab EmiratesThe other group of death. Iran have found themselves in very poor form at a bad time and have brought in Ali Daei as coach to help sort things out. It's hard to imagine them not making it through to the next stage. The U.A.E. on the other hand have put themselves on top courtesy of a strong win over Kuwait at home and a draw with Syria away. If Ismail Matar keeps scoring them should qualify, perhaps even ahead of Iran.
Iran
I have no idea how the Round 4 groups will be determined. It'll be tricky because of the odd number of teams in each group, meaning that one group will probably have three Round 3 group winners and the other just two. Higher seeded teams may also be preferentially allocated.
Purely to develop a hypothetical scenario I've undertaken a random draw, putting all the one Round 3 group winners in one hat and the runners-up in another, then simply alternately drawing one winner and one runner-up to take successive slots in each Round 4 group. I allowed teams from the same Round 3 group to be drawn together again. This is what I came up with:
Round 4 Group 1
Saudi ArabiaRound 4 Group 2
Bahrain
Japan
China
Korea Republic
UzbekistanSeems like wishful thinking to me!
Australia
Iran
United Arab Emirates
Korea DPR
4 comments:
....Although there's only been two games played in Round 3 so far, we can probably make some fairly safe predictions about the composition of the two Round 4 groups...
Not so sure any more James, esp after watching the qataris on thurs, and then to learn about the japan loss to bahrain, the uzbeki victory against saudi and i reckon group 5 looks mega tight and there may be an upset there...anyway, it's all so damn exciting.
If that's the way it pans out, the group 1 from stage 4 looks super tough. The ironic thing is that we could end up playing the Champions of Oceania over two legs if stage 4 doesn't do well and we finish 3rd and manage to beat the 3rd placed team from the other group.
Australia v New Zealand, well it would draw a crowd.
I forgot about that - maybe because the possibility of a vs NZ scenario is too unimaginably horrific and backward for me to contemplate!
I think I'd rather the Oceania winners play North Korea.
Tony, I agree a big upset is on the cards but it's probably too early to call. If anyone, Iran looks the to be in the weakest position of the big guns in Asia. It seems the jury is still very much out on Ali Daei's capacity to take the team through qualification...
I'd say Australia and Qatar most likely out of Group 1, haven't been impressed with China at all.
From Group 5, Syria are potential darkhorses. Syrian football appears to be on the rise, with their clubs having put in decent performances in the ACL, plus the national side's spectacular demolition of Indonesia in the preliminaries (11-1 on aggregate) and a 0-0 draw in Iran.
Believe it or not, a full-strength NZ might just be able to trouble a few Asian teams given favourable conditions at home.
While improving, the gulf in quality in Asia is significantly larger than it is in zones similarly large in membership like Europe and Africa. This is borne out not only by Malaysia's abysmal showing (as one of the region's true minnows), but also by the fact that Indonesia and Vietnam took full advantage of being hosts in the Asian Cup to put in decent performances in the tournament- yet perform abysmally in World Cup qualifiers that same year.
Teams who didn't make the Asian Cup, like Syria, Jordan, North Korea and Turkmenistan (worth noting that Jordan made the last 8 in 2004, and Turkmenistan also qualified for that tournament) are all better than some of the teams in last year's Asian Cup. Teams like Yemen, Kyrgyzstan (who lost on pens to Jordan) and Tajikistan can all count themselves unfortunate not to have made it to the group stage of the WCQ.
The depth of African football is demonstrated by the fact that 4 of the 5 African representatives in the last World Cup were making their debuts, 3 of them put on quite a showing. Europe has teams like Lithuania and Macedonia who have caused headaches for Italy and England respectively.
So what can we make of the AFC? It's a region with vast differences in culture, climate, wealth- and football ability, which is still more acute than in other major regions.
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