My prediction depends on the final groups and seeding but I really think South Korea might not make it this year if they get a bad draw. The Uzbeks have been very impressive and the Koreans have struggled somewhat in their group.
My ideal group for Iraq (if they use the same pots as last time): Australia-We always have decent games against them, should bring excitement to the final round and reignite the fledgling rivalry Iran-A team who plays with a similar style to us and would rather have the team travel less for the games than face a more technically able far eastern team who we'd struggle against. Iraq Oman-Got through after scrapping with a poor Saudi and Thailand who while showing improvement are no real threat. Shouldn't pose too many problems when they're away from Oman. Lebanon- Though they recently beat us in a friendly and are playing well, I think they'll run out of steam in the final round. I'd rather we avoided Qatar too due to their ability to get results against any team when they need them. Jordan are more consistent than Lebanon too.
I'd actually like those games as well, as our Euro players wouldn't have to travel as far for our away games. That can only be a positive thing.
Take points, sure, compete strongly, no doubt, take qualification from Australia, Iran, Japan or Korea? I don't see it. Round 4 is a marathon, and that advantages the bigger sides, who can throw money at logistics and conditioning, draw on bigger talent pools and have the experience to keep it together when things get tough. The other six teams have what it takes to win some home games and be competitive away, but to take qualification requires them to keep punching above their weight for a year. It's possible if everything goes right, but the big four only have to get it right once or twice to derail them. From what I saw of their games against Japan they look slick again... but that's been the way with them for what? eight years now? Like I say above, good form in R3 isn't worth anything in R4.
Given our tremendous WCQ successes in the past, Korea will somehow make it as usual. And our new manager Choi Kang-hee is the master of how to deal with various Asian sides. He has excellent track record in AFC Champions League as the Jeonbuk manager, (2 Final appearances, 4 QF appearances, 1 Championship) knowing what to do and when to do something.
lol I want the exact same. I especially want Australia to be drawn in our group. Its long overdue and it would add more excitement. Tired of Iran playing South Korea all the time, though they are imo a tad weaker than the Socceroos at the moment.
Aye they're in the same pot, however going on the draw procedure for the 2010 World Cup (which is all we have at present), the final pot has the 4 lowest seeded teams and is likely to offer up any combination of 2 teams. The draw procedure hasn't been confirmed by AFC yet for this set of qualifiers. But the thinking is that it will remain the same.
Have the seedings been decided yet? I thought they were waiting for the final FIFA rankings to come out?
You can easily get the pots using the calculator on fifa.com (also footballrankings.info already released their prieview for the rankings). We are only waiting for the draw procedure to see whether there will be four or five pots. I guess AFC will not release the info until March 7 or 8.
As Irakien pointed out. AFC confirmed it will use the 7th March rankings, and I put the rankings as they will appear on the 7th (through the ranking prognosis tool) on my earlier post.
Subscribe to this person: www.youtube.com/user/TheAsianFootball Came across this channel yesterday, and he/she uploads full Asian WCQ matches (though not all of them) in great quality.
Qatar's goal scorer against Iran, the man who saved Qatar in the 86th minute, has received a valuable gift from the Qatari rulers - a camel called "Azadia" who has been named after the Azadi stadium in Tehran.
lol and I was reading in PFDC that the 'blood money' for a camel is more than a human being (300K vs. 200K). khalijee arabs are just and for the love of god, stop showing camel races on your sports channels. I have 2 arab channels and the ratio of football games to camel races is 1:500!
Now Official Ranking: 1 Australia +2 2 Korea Republic +4 3 Japan 740 -3 4 Iran 574 -4 5 Uzbekistan +10 7 Iraq +3 8 Jordan -1 9 Qatar +8 11 Oman +3 17 Lebanon -10 http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html
lol saudi is hardly in top 10 of asia, and under haiti, sierra leone, guatemala, cape verde islands, northern ireland.
Blood money is set at whatever the aggrieved party wants. There is no set default price that I can recall. Eh, in the west they have 24 hour horse betting channels. FIFA Rankings are ********ed up, Iran is beneath Panama and Armenia for some reason.