The 10th Edition of the ASEAN Football Championship to be held on November-December 2014, co-hosted by Singapore and Vietnam. Co-hosts were announced at the pre-awarding press conference of the 2013 AFF Awards in Pahang, Malaysia, through Duli Yang Teramat Mulia Tengku Abdullah ibni Sultan Ahmad Shah, the deputy president of the Football Association of Malaysia and vice-president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) executive committee. THE TEAMS It has been announced that the qualification process will be scrapped for the 2014 edition, therefore giving all AFF teams to participate in the main group stage. Singapore (co-host, defending champions in 2012 edition) Vietnam (co-host) Thailand (2012 runners-up) Philippines (2012 semi-finalist) Malaysia (2012 semi-finalist) Indonesia Myanmar Brunei Cambodia Laos Timor-Leste The final draw of the competition will be held around July 2014. PREVIOUS WINNERS 1996: Thailand 1998: Singapore 2000: Thailand 2002: Thailand 2004: Singapore 2007: Singapore 2008: Vietnam 2010: Malaysia 2012: Singapore More details here: http://www.goal.com/en-sg/news/3880...apore-and-vietnam-to-host-2014-aff-suzuki-cup
Article I've discovered that was written in early April states that Australia won't enter the AFF Championship even though they will be members of the ASEAN federation. http://www.todayonline.com/sports/football/australia-eye-further-east-asia-cups-despite-asean-move Now, I know every nation can do what they want, but should ASEAN really be admitting members who have no intention of playing in their biggest competition? They are more or less saying we are better than you and giving the region the finger? I still remember the 2007 Asian Championship when they thought it would be a piece of cake and they generally struggled. I doubt a AFF Championship would be a cake walk either.
To be fair their only big defeat during that tournament was the 3-1 to Iraq while they defeated the recent ASEAN runners-up Thailand 4-0. They then only lost on penalties 4-3 to Japan. Not a bad tournament. They then proved their dominance in 2011 but are now in a rebuilding process.
In that Thailand game, they scored 3 in the last 10 minutes when Thailand was pushing, the scoreline is somewhat flaterring. In recent times, Australia have struggled against Thailand in Asian Cup qualifiers, so theres not a huge gap between the two really. ASEAN should be demanding that they at least send some sort of team, and to be honest, Australia would be misisng out on not sending a 'A' League side anyway.
I have never seen a full Australia match (World Cup excluded) but from the highlights it looks like Australia dominate mostly but just never finish and to be honest they don't have a finisher. Robbie Kruse is easily way to overhyped and Thompson is past it. I do agree that they should send an A-League squad or an "Only Asian League" team but that is there decision.
Australia is going backwards.. That's all I can say. Just watch all of their WCQ's. The only game that impressed me was against KSA in Melbourne. They are an overaged team, and rely on the last minute headers of Cahill They need to inject fresh blood. They can't rely on Schwarzer, Thompson and Neill forever.
Agree 100%. They do have some nice up and coming players like Mitchell Duke, Craig Goodwin, Trent Sainsbury, Tommy Orr, Tom Rogic, Michael Zullo, Terry Antonis, and Mathew Leckie but they are not fully there yet.
I expected an upset from Oman in Sydney, simply because they're relying on last minute goals. Don't think that they will make it to the World Cup, so I think that they will drop to 70-80's in the FIFA rankings
That is a little to far. They will make the World Cup but they will probably get knocked-out in the group stage.
Believe me. Other Asian teams are getting better and better. The so called 'underdogs' like Jordan and Oman are dominating. What makes you think that they will qualify?
Australia is the one with the 1 game advantage over Jordan and Oman. And in there next three matches of qualifiers, 2 of them are at home (to Jordan and Iraq). And the one away at Japan. Now looking at the squad I think they have the players to get them through. Guys like James Holland, Brett Holman, Mark Milligan, Rhys Williams, Michael Zullo, and Ryan McGowin are better then the average Iraqi or Jordan player. And Tim Cahill, while not as good as he was before, has dominated in MLS with the Red Bulls and MLS is a better league than where most of those guys come from. So don't underestimate Australia. They are a good side on there day and they know now that if they drop more than 2 points then that is it. They are cooked. So lets just wait and see. I expect a draw or a loss against Japan and victory against Iraq and Jordan. And I feel that Iraq can do Australia a solid and hold Oman at least to a draw while Oman can hold Jordan. So the chances are looking good for Australia. Just don't mess up now.
They will lose to Japan, beat Jordan, and draw or lose their last game against us. I think they will go to the playoffs, and then lose to a South America side. The pressure will be on them the last 2 home games. What means home advantage if you can't beat Oman?
What does home advantage mean when my United States can not beat Costa Rica at home or even Panama in the last Gold Cup. Shit happens. Now, I will say this again, yes the pressure is on but the Aussie's love pressure. They take advantage of it usual. Now I am not a full supporter of Australia but this is the case usually in Australian sports. They do not give up and when they see that they could be sunk anytime soon then they are spring back up. Will it be easy, no, will they do it, yes.
I agree with you that the Aussies have the 'do or die attitude'. They love the thrill of facing elimination / play-off's, that's their strength. Whatever the outcome will be, this will all last until the last matchday, and it will be an amazing last match against Iraq. I can't wait
To return this discussion to the AFF Cup, I agree, Australia is doing themselves and AFF a terrible disfavor by not at least sending a young squad for the experience. Why did we admit them to AFF again? They can't draw crowds if they don't participate and they aren't Southeast Asian any way you look at it.
Before we talk too much about Australia, can we at least talk about the scrapping of the qualification round? I do think that the qualifiers were instituted because the lower teams then (Cambodia, Laos, Timor Leste, Brunei, Myanmar (on some occasions), and the Philippines) couldn't just keep up with the big teams (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam). It was especially a bad prospect at that time to include all of them on the main tournament as the lower teams would suffer large-scale losses most of the time. You might have witnessed the 13-1 drubbing by Indonesia against the Philippines in 2002, and it wasn't good to look at. But you might have witnessed as well in 2010 the Philippines win 2-0 against Vietnam which grabbed headlines all over the world. This I think became a major turning point for the lower nations to catch up with the upper nations by emulating what the Azkals have done since. In the previous tournament in 2012, we did see in the qualifiers that it was a close fight to the main tourney with Timor Leste almost making it to the main round with their players of part-Brazilian heritage. Now that the gap in quality has been lessened, I think it's indeed time that the qualifiers be scrapped and all 11 of them should be involved in the main tourney. As I see it, we may have a longer Suzuki Cup and we should see surprises coming along the way.
I agree with you that if we are to be a member of AFF then we should enter a team in the Championship. The timing may be the thing that makes it difficult for this tournament with preparations for the Asian Championships to be hosted by us in January 2015 being in full swing at that time. If we don't play in this event this time, we should make sure we play in it in future.
When questioned previously on the subject, Football Federation Australia said it did not expect the Socceroos to be allowed to participate at the 2014 AFF Championships. However, after the formal announcement of its admission to the regional federation, an FFA spokesperson hinted that fresh attempts would be made to secure a place at the tournament next year. http://www.goal.com/en-sg/news/3952...eroos-could-compete-at-2014-aff-championships
As expected, with the possible entry of Australia in the Suzuki Cup, it seems that the AFF wouldn't want to "embarrass" the weaker nations by not letting them get drawn and play Australia then and there if they had to directly put the low-ranked nations in the main tourney. Smoke-screening on AFF's part. LOL
Pure speculation at this point. It's not clear (or if it will at all) why the current format was retained. But at the same time, it's not yet certain that Australia will be part of the 2014 edition.
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/sports/82984/vietnam-is-not-the-seed-at-aff-cup-2014.html Qualifiers date - October 8, to 19, 2014 Finals date - November 22 to December 20, 2014. AFF is also discussing scrapping the two-countries format for Finals. Does it mean Aussies is set for 2016 as 12 teams mean 3 countries instead
Draw will take place in August 2014, in Hanoi. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/sp...etnam-s-preparations-for-suzuki-cup-2014.html
I'm pleased with the fact that Laos have received the rights to host the qualifying tourney. It's a shame we aren't directly qualified, but hosting a qualification stage is also very fun. Besides, we will still qualify, as usual...