What do you think about the Asian Cup being moved to the first year of a World Cup cycle (with the fourth year being the World Cup)? I think it's a great idea. It will get rid of the one year where Asia is pretty quiet. Also, the Asian Cup will be the premier competition for Asians too unlike in the past, where national teams focused on their Olympic teams success instead. Also, Asian players can be scouted for European teams through this tournament much earlier instead of waiting until the 2nd year. Only cons might be for those Asians signed in Europe through the World Cup, who won't be able to participate for their national team because they are likely to be fighting for their spot on the club. 1st: Asian Cup/Confederations Cup 2nd: Olympic Qualifying/Olympics 3rd: World Cup Qualifying/Confederations Cup 4th: World Cup
If you want to get your increasing number of Euro club oplayers to show up for the various internationals and tournaments, AFC should take a page from the African book and incorporate the WC Qualifying into Asia Cup Qualifying, or even use the Asia Cup Tournament itself for the WC qualifying. To do this, the Asia Cup would have to be held in the year before the World Cup (2009, 2013, etc.). FIFA and the Confederations keep talking about reducing fixture congestion and reducing club versus country confrontations, but then they throw up ridiculous monster WC Qualifying formats (like CONCANAF's latest 20 to 22 game proposal) and useless competitions like the Confederations Cup. FIFA can have all the rules about having to answer a country's call, but in practice it won't happen , as Australia, Canada and numerous other natons have have found to their disappointment.
The opposite I think. Moving the Asian cup to a better time on the international calendar allows the teams to free up their players.
i'm ok with the current format. this year is the year when players need time focusing on their club teams. olympic is now purely a u-23 competition so putting asia cup here is fine by me. i thought about the winner of the next asian cup gets auto berth to boost the competition but maybe not a good idea
The thing is a lot of countries lies on or near the equator, therefore we cannot hold qualifying competitions in the summer like Europe, they have to be in the fall when the temperature is a little cooler and thus most teams will be depleted of their best players from europe.
what's the fixtures and schedule? last time in lebanon it was horrible. 30 miles away from stadium you could hear gun fire. stadium was empty in most of time except the lebanon games and the final. in the first round just like confede cup, participants had only one day rest and at the semi-final japan and saudi had a disadvantage by having 1 day less for rest. i'm sure after seeing what happened in france '03, afc and china will work hard to make it better.