AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015

So is he the best player for Kuwait right now?

As for Oman, Ali Al-Habsi will be their key. Maybe Jung Sung-Ryong would learn from watching him.

 

I kinda like the group
But more importantly can we please win a fcking Asian cup already? Our international image has gone to shit.
Japan sent like three players to Germany in the wake of the AC. A Confeds cup appearance does wonders for scouting and publicity and I also want to see us win some goddamn silverware for once. We think it's a crap tourney, but CKR did one thing right in actually sending an A team. Because internationally we can only prove ourselves in the AC (or the WC).

This year will be a little better than previous years. Iran always tires us out and stalemated us in the past five or six years, and last year at least we only got three days of rest in between games.
But this year the timing is on our side (assuming we get first place in our group). We play our QF match, presumably against either China or Saudi Arabia, a day before Iran plays their QF, giving us 4 days of rest as opposed to their three. And when we beat Iran on the 26th, the day after that Japan will play their semi on the 27th, giving us the one extra day of rest this time, hopefully cancelling out the physically taxing efforts any Iran game will surely bring.

Realistically we could see something like this, though I'd love to see the Aussies meet us in the final like it should've been last year

I'm also still fcking sour about that fcking 2011 AC semifinal. That was our game. Fcking Hosogai's goal that came from a penalty call from a foul outside the box. Japan were not better than us back then and we were pretty even compared to the gulf we see now due after CKR/CKH came around. Can we please set things right this time?

(Huh this is my 4000th post. Cool!)

 

Ji Dong-Won and Koo Ja-Cheol went to Europe too.

 

As Keren mentioned, the scouts really aren't gonna buy into a player based on performances vs the likes of India. If they're going to watch, it'd be us vs Australia or Japan. And as I recall, the scout count was very low last time anyway with much of the interest based on other factors (KJC in AG/German agent for Japan)

And conversely this cup will happen at the same time that our existing foreign players may be fighting to earn a regular spot. It ended up not hurting SHM much but the risk of injury or missing opportunities to play due to inj/suspension are out there as well.

 

15 hr time difference between New York and Canberra.

Not sure how the match time will be. But depending on the game, us ppl here in Eastern time zone will be looking at a game time around early morning of 12am - 2 am or 4am - 6am

 

Heard something from Chinese forums about players such as Zheng Zhi and Sun Lei. How are they?

 

Shouldn't you ask the Chinese about Chinese players?

https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/forums/china.1069/

 

There are only like 3-5 regular posters there. Compared to around 20 for the AFC/ACL forums.

 

Ask the 2-3 people there

 

Hao Junmin was supposed to be the next Chinese superstar. No, Uzebekistan and Saudi Arabia look stronger.

 

I don't think there's much of a difference in quality between KNT at Cho era's height and KNT now.

Also it's during winter break for Germans.

 

Both were very good during the last Asian Cup.

 

http://www.afcasiancup.com/i/AsianCup/img/pdfs/AFC_Asian_Cup_2015_Ticketing_Guide.pdf

 

I'll try and go to as many games as possible.

Pity there's no games involving Korea in the group stage in Sydney though!

 

This maybe super old news, but i wanted to post it anyway to bring attention to AFC's decision to merge 2018 World cup qualification and 2019 Asian cup qualification.

http://www.the-afc.com/en/about-afc...o-approves-expanded-afc-asian-cup-finals.html

some key announcement.

1. expansion of 2019 Asian cup participants from 16 teams to 24

2. Preliminary round of world cup qualifying will have 8 groups (doesn't say how many team in a group. assume it's 4 team per group). 8 group winners plus 4 top group runner advance to final round of world cup qualifying plus automatically qualify for 2019 Asian cup.

3. Final round of world cup qualifying will have two group of six teams instead of the previous five. Assuming Asia keeps its 4.5 tickets to world cup, top two finisher of the group directly advances to the 2018 world cup.

4. Around the same time during the final round of world cup qualifying, teams that were eliminated from world cup qualifying from the preliminary round will go through additional Asian cup qualification to make up for remaining 12 spots for 2019 Asian cup.

 

Let's fcking win this

 

Might as well start looking forward to the tourney now. As for winning it, that will be a tough ask given the shambles our team is in.

 

Man that 2011 AFC loss was rough.

 

I think it's more important to try different things. We are four years away now, and our players will go up and down but we have to find a system that will be adaptable enough to handle afc bus parkers and give us a chance against WC opponents.

I wouldn't mind some of the failure we've had if I felt like it had purpose but too much of non WC failure was not even having a realistic plan.

 

i would like to see HMB use different players for this tournament. granted our Euro players for the most part will be available. but we need to incorporate domestic + U-23 players starting now.

 

Probably gonna call up Cho Yong Cheol and all his other padawans.

 

Given the inevitable, I wonder if Iraq can even send a squad to this tournament...

 

I'm stil extremely sour about that

Also, can we just groom some U20 / U23 defenders into our senior NT like now? something HAS to change soon

 

We have a defender at HSV no?