Same here. It’s nowhere to be found in the Eleven Sports Network. For the last Asian cup, someone was posting replays of most of the games online for download — that’s how I watched. I’m not willing to wake up at odd hours to see them live so I was hoping that a streaming service with DVR functionality like FuboTV would carry them.
Despite the naysayers here, expanding the Asian Cup to 24 countries was the right call as it has added a lot of excitement to the tournament with a lot of upsets and close calls already causing nervous moments to some of the favorites.
Yes I agree with you. Although the main reason for the expansion were economic reasons, there is no doubt that Asian football has improved a lot in the last years. I would even say that Asia is these days number 3 in the world behind Europe and South America as regions like North America or Africa do not seem to be better in terms of quality and depth than Asia
I think most of the complaints were being made by fans of the "elite" nations i.e. the ones that regularly reach the final qualifying round of the FIFA World Cup. Slowly but surely though, the gap in quality between those nations and the rest is decreasing and I believe that the combined Asian Cup/World Cup qualification format has a lot to do with that. What the emerging nations needed was a little bit of confidence by playing against the top dogs. It has certainly acted as a shot in the arm for nations like the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, (and a number of other nations that narrowly failed to qualify for this tournament) to plan for the future. Now AFC just needs to do something similar with their club competitions, like removing the unnecessary East/West barrier, and the braindead decision to segregate groups by federations in the AFC Cup.
There are financial reasons why some of the clubs in some of the smaller countries in Asia(specifically the ones at the opposite ends) especially in the AFC Cup might have a difficult time competing in a non segregated tournament. They might not be able to participate because of the costs of flying across the vast expanse of Asia just to compete in the AFC Cup. Opening up the AFC Champion's League and AFC Cup to more countries has helped develop and expose the smaller countries to a higher level of football improving their respective leagues and federations, but I think they should keep the initial stages of the competition at a regional level. If they are good enough then they will advance further and get to play the bigger nations but at the initial stages, facing regional competition is sufficient both financially and in terms of balanced competitive play.
That's true. I don't mind AFC reverting to the previous format of the AFC Cup that had WAFF/CAFF clubs on one side and SAFF/ASEAN/EAFF clubs on the other. The current format just doesn't expose clubs to the wide array of playing styles and environments they would usually experience before, which I think is a very important factor.
Meh - not so surprised to be honest with you. It's quite normal in these sort of tournaments for the big hitters to have their foot off the gas at the very beginning of the tournament as they are really in it for the long haul, to play 7 games. Their opponents on the other hand will play their hearts out each match as their goals in the tournament are simply just to stay alive as long as they can. Even Son Heung-Min is staying to play for Spurs until the end of the group stages for SK! I think you'll see the big guns upping their ante a bit more in this second round to secure their spot in the next round before taking their foot off the pedal again for the last group games. All in all the 1st round games went pretty much expected in the end, with the exception of Jordan beating Australia - that was a surprise, but Jordan are no minnows having appeared in 4 of the last 5 Asian Cup, reaching the quarterfinals twice so again not the biggest surprise ever. I still expect the final, and probably 4 semifinals to be between the big 4-5 Asian giants as always
You can say the same about the World Cup and nobody least of all the favorites in the current Asian Cup are advocating reducing the number of World Cup participants to 16 since their chances of making it there will be reduced. The point is by and large, most of the games in the Asian Cup have been competitive despite the increase of teams participating in the tournament belying the claims by some that there is not enough depth in Asia to make a 24 team Asian Cup interesting.
I have to agree with Aussie guy for most part. It is also correct that some Asian nations are trying to catch up with big 4 but the gap still is wide open. Japan, Australia, and S.Korea took these group stage matches like friendly games. Even Iran was resting Iranian first choice LB,RW and Iranian captain for first match despite defeating Yemen 5-0 (we don't have our top DM, and a couple FWs and wingers due to injury as well which is the case for Japan and Australia too). Only KSA fielded their top 11. Although this new version of AC might have some benefit for lower ranking Asian teams it has taken the hype and excitement from top 4-6 Asian nations. Some teams like Vietnam play good football but their lack of stamina and physical strength created an obvious barrier for them, which can not be overcome easily. Lack of organization and financial back up hold many other Asian footballing nations as well. Untill these problems are not solved, we won't see any major change in AFC unfortunately.
Like I said, we see the same things in the World Cup. The same old favorites end up winning the Cup or reaching the semifinals and finals. They also don't field their first team in the group stages as well sometimes losing a game to lower ranking teams before ramping it up later on in the knockout stages. Does that mean we should reduce the number of teams participating in the World Cup to 16 teams? If we go by actual team strength and ranking alone many European and South American teams who don't make the World Cup(due to their limited number of slots) will qualify pushing teams from other continents (maybe even Iran and Australia) out of that competition. Is that the kind of elitist reasoning that you advocate? Many of the stronger Asian teams have improved their level of football by participating in the World Cup? Wouldn't it be fair for the smaller teams to get the same exposure at least at the Asian level, by increasing the number of slots in the Asian Cup and other Asian competitions? Vietnam has done well at the youth level making the finals and semifinals in Asian youth competitions and the Asian games last year. They just need more experience at the senior level against elite level competition to get better. Participating in the Asian Games will provide dividends for them helping them gain the exposure needed that will benefit them when WC qualifying starts again.
I'm all for the expansion. It's undoubtedly good for the game in the long term. The only downside as PL has mentioned already is the fact that it has reduced the excitement to minimum or down right nonexistent for the actual contenders. But w/e, things will start to get exciting again around the quarter-finals bit. Hopefully. Also, another idea is to completely integrate Oceania into AFC, and make it a 32 team competition with top 2 teams per group making it to the round of 16. Believe it or not, even that's more exciting than the way it is now at the group stage.
I remember reading when completely unknown N Korea eliminated Italy in the group stage in the 1966 WC finals competition. It was big news in Italy. When they got home at the airport(despite no announcement on where they were landing) fans were there waiting and throwing rotten tomatoes and fruits at them at the tarmac and they had to run for it. The fans chased them all the way to the team bus. These things happen in an expanded competition and is just as newsworthy for the favorites as it is for the weaker teams. It becomes part of their football folklore and is ingrained into the national consciousness even years later. So when S Korea beat Italy in 2002, the 1966 fiasco was brought up again as Italy lost to another Korean team. These were the headlines “LADRI” screamed the front page of Corriere dello Sport on the morning after the match, that word translating simply to “THIEVES”. Gazzetta dello Sport went with “Vergogna!” – Italian for “Shame!” Even the more restrained Corriere della Sera was outraged. “Italy has been thrown out of a dirty World Cup where referees and linesmen are used as hitmen,” wrote Giorgio Tosatti inside that paper. “No other team in the entire history of the World Cup has suffered so many injustices.” https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/01/world-cup-25-stunning-moments-italy-south-korea
AFC has been using trickle-down economics for far too long. It's essentially a system where the tax dodging rich get to play with each other and have all the fun. The poor are left to feed off their scraps and perhaps miraculously, get in their club one day. But until then, the poor are "not our problem". Let's just keep it this way, it's so much fun when it's just the five of us with little competition to worry us!
What World Cups are you watching? The only time they rest starters is if its the 3rd match of the group stage and they are guaranteed to advance. Top teams are more likely to rest players in the Asian Cup not just because of the lower competition but also because it takes place at the beginning of the World Cup cycle, when (often new) managers are trying to figure out which players they want to use and give everyone some competitive experience.
I personally think a nations league comp in the AFC would be a better way to get the "minnows" involved, and offers more incentive to put up better performances over a long timeframe (rather than a knockout tournament). Nonetheless, it has been good to see some of the other nations take place in the tournament.
They just mentioned on the coverage here in Australia that the 4 best 3rd place teams will be ranked only on their results against 1st and 2nd ignoring the result against the last place team in the group. Is this correct?
It was Mark Bosnich who said it, so the possibility that he is completely wrong is relatively high. It took the other panel members by surprise.
I hope not, would make the final day fixtures like Phillipines vs Kyrgyzstan, Oman vs Turkmenistan, maybe even Yemen vs Vietnam or Lebanon vs North Korea, which should be tasty fixtures to see who goes through meaningless for some teams...
Just read the official competition regulations, no mention of it. So should just be as expected, all results count.
Hate to say this but I was kind of right about the bigger guns flexing their muscles a bit more in the 2nd round of games, and we really had a round of blowouts that suggest that while the gap may be closing, there still is some ways to go for some of the lighter weight nations to join the big boys. Out of the 6 groups, 4 have 2 teams on 6 points, and 2 on 0 which does not really suggest a lack of parity. Here's another shocking statistic, in the 12 2nd group stage games that got played, there was not one tie, but an aggregate score of 30-0 for the winning side vs losing side. Only today's group A really looks in the balance with any team able to go through, and that's probably because it's the 1 group with the weaker host-seed. I guess all there is to play for in this last round is to see which of those bottom 2 teams can battle it out for the 4 best 3rd places. One silly thing about this format is that depending on your draw, it seems like 4 lucky group winners get to play 3rd placed teams whereas 2 not so lucky group winners have to fight it out with 2 group runner ups. Anyway, we'll see what happens - looking forward to tonight's matches, I remember India getting smashed 5-2 to Bahrain here in Doha back in 2011, let's see how much the times have changed if they have..
I think its a little more nuanced. There are plenty of results, even in matchday 2 which do seem to suggest that the gap in quality is closing in AFC. UAE 2 India 0 Keep in mind this is the home team. India has certainly improved tremendously. Their 4-1 victory over Thailand is something that would never have happened in the past. China 2 Kyrgyzstan 1 South Korea 1 Kyrgyzstan 0 one goal losses against one of the best 3 asian sides, and a top 10 side. Again this would never have happened in the past. The Phillipines only losing 1-0 to Korea Turkmenistan losing only 3-2 to Japan, they later get murdered by Uzbekistan however. I think overall we have seen mixed results in terms of the depth of AFC, I think it is still inconclusive at this point, and we will have a better picture once the tournament is done, but I think there are initial signs that some previous minnows of AFC are improving in quality. Certainly teams like India, Phillipines, Turkmenistan, Kyrgzstan have improved. Is it a case of top teams playing down to opposition, or are these teams generally improving. I dont think it necessarily has to be either or, perhaps a mix of both. I do think there is enough to suggest the bottom teams improving though.
Don't know about this one. Lost 4-0 to Uzbekistan! A team that usually doesn't score that much. As for the rest, I think you're right. The gap is clearly narrowing.