In west, Saudi Arabia, Iran and UAE have 4 spots. In east, Japan, Korea and China have 4 spots. The groups are always like this. "Saudi + Iran + UAE + ???" "Japan + Korea + China + ???" Which is harder? Here is the stats as of the end of matchday 4. I don't think UAE deserve to have 4 spots... They have some good foreign imports but the level of domestic players is terrible! Code: 1. Japan 39 P 12 - 3 - 1 2. Saudi Arabia 35 P 10 - 5 - 1 3. South Korea 25 P 7 - 4 - 5 4. China 19 P 5 - 4 - 7 5. Iran 15 P 3 - 6 - 7 6. UAE 7 P 1 - 4 - 11
Teams from Uzbek and Qatar are competitive in west asia while in East asia we still have ASEAN clubs who are far behind the average level of east asia.
I'll quicky note that UAE don't get 4 automatic spots. They earn that right by beating other lower oppostion. Generally, no side has any greater depth than what we already see, and as for the East, well, ASEAN certainly does let the side down. Whereas on the West, teams are more or less at the same level except for the odd one. But then what do you expect with some teams? Some teams are entered, although they are clearly not even the best in their own league, as you example before, UAE this year has 4 teams, yet their dometic league has 12 teams. 4th team is more mid table than championship material.
East Asia by a mile. Saudis are completely dominating the west but it is because other leagues in west asia (including us sadly) suck.
east asia is dominated by japan,china and korean clubs..but west asia includes uzbek clubs and some what fight giving uae and qatari club...i think west asia is more harder
I think the hardest one is "Japan - Korea - China - Australia". A-League shouldn't be underrated and Adelaide United beat Bunyodkor convincingly last year.
They ought to have given 4 spots to Qatari sides, they've been superior to Emirati clubs the last few years
We had a discussion about this before the tournament started, and people like me and druryfire were arguing that the Western side is harder because there's more depth (that doesn't mean the top teams in the West are better than the top teams in the East; that's a separate question). So far, I think we've been proven correct -- the Western side is looking more competitive and harder to predict.
I think they are basically the same Saudi arabian clubs == japanese clubs. Uzbekistan clubs== S. Korean clubs. Iranian clubs == chinese clubs. in terms of performance, im not trying to be offensive in any way. oh and there are the qatari clubs so maybe it tilts a bit to west asia
we know. but i think j-league has a better record than k-league overall nowadays. btw i disagree that the uzbek league is equal to k-league. the koreans are easily superior to the uzbeks in the depth of the league. uzbekistan has only 2 good clubs and the rest are weak. it's like Ukraine league or scottish league.
are you aware that Chinese runners-up beat Korean Champions 2-1 this week. OK I know Suwon had bounced back at home
Where does that depth come from? The two Singaporean clubs or the Indonesian one? Or maybe the Thai club? Even the two OZ clubs are bottom of their groups -- one of them has a GD of -6! I'll stipulate that the Japanese clubs are better than the Saudi ones, and that the Korean clubs are better than the Iranian ones. But as soon as you go further, the clubs on the Western side are much better than the ones in the East (Uzbek clubs, UAE clubs, Qatari clubs >>> Australian, Singaporean, Indonesian, Thai, and possibly even Chinese clubs). Therefore, the Western side of the tournament obviously has more depth and is more difficult to qualify from. The standings in the 8 groups bear this out.
A - 5 pts B - 4 C - 3 D - 2 E - 1 A - Japan (4), Saudi Arabia (4) B - South Korea (4), China (4) C - Iran (4), UAE (4), Uzbekistan (2), Qatar (2), Australia (2) D - none E - Singapore (1), Indonesia (1) East - 60 West - 56