Syria and Saudi Arabia are for now the real winners of this 3rd WCQ stage. Iran is doing a great job, but they had a base to start from.
Iran vs Syria perfectly described in 2 pictures An example of time wasting by pretending to be injured while committing dangerous foul on opponent player. Half of the match Syrian players were on the floor. We were just lucky our players didn't get injured. Condition of the pitch If someone wants to listen he/she will pay attention; otherwise, no matter how hard I try, it won't change anything.
Qatar made history as the first host nation to not qualify to the WC before hosting it after losing 1-0 against Uzbekistan, well, they are still not mathematically out, but they need a miracle to finish the group in the 3rd place.
first matches played and as usual they bring some surprises. In bold, suprising results or key group matches: Myanmar 0 - 1 India Philippines 4 - 1 Nepal Kyrgyzstan 1 - 0 Macao Afghanistan 1 - 1 Vietnam Lebanon 2 - 0 Hong Kong Oman 14 - 0 Bhutan Jordan 7 - 0 Cambodia Maldives 0 - 3 Palestine Bahrain 0 - 0 Singapore Yemen 2 - 1 Tajikistan
Rumors are that Costa has signed a pre-contract with Tianjin of CSL. The transfer fee will be around 90 million euros.
Iran just won tonight 2-0 against Uzbekistan, and they are officially the first Asian nation to quaify to 2018 WC. Congratulations.
My Prediction Japan 1-1 Australia UAE 1-2 Saudi Korean 0-1 Iran China 1-1 Uzbek Saudi 1-1 Japan Australia 3-1 Thai Uzbek 2-2 Korea Japan will become third and lucky Korea 2nd in their group. Uzbek is a choker and China is improving under Lippi, so this is possible. I will enjoy playoff.
My prediction about Saudi game in the previous post is draw But I also can imgagine Saudi scoring counter atack goals against desparate Japan(especialy in the case Japan need a win), so can imagine loss. I think beating Australia in Japan would be more easy than beating Saudi in Saudi(especially in hot september), even though Japan has never beaten Australia in WCQ. Anyway, prediction aside, I just want to beat Australia in WCQ. Revenge on those Aussie fans!
Woops! I meant to say that I don't expect Saudi Arabia to get any points from a match against Japan. Saudi players tend to wilt under pressure and the FA is hopelessly incompetent. Our only hope is beating the UAE and hoping Japan or Australia drop points elsewhere.
We had a similar banner straight afterwards lol, said something like 'Socceroos: Forever our down under" or something like that...
I didn't know it. Anyway in Confederation Cup. Australia 2-3 German Australia 1-1 Cameroon Australia 1-1 Chili I only watched Aus-Chili game. It was a nice game. Australia was better and stronger than I had expected. The remaining two games will be very hard for Japan.
Just need to beat Australia in August. Unfortunately the national coach of Australia is my friend's brother-in-law.
South Korea are really in dire situation. They couldn't defeat Iran at home to secure their qualification (Iran were reduced to 10-men since the 53rd minute). In other matches China defeated Uzbekistan 1-0 and Syria defeated Qatar 3-1 to mix up the group ahead of the last match day. Standing: 1- Iran 21pts (Gd +8). 2- S. Korea 14pts (Gd +1). 3- Syria 12 pts (Gd +1). 4- Uzbekistan 12pts (Gd -1). 5- China 9pts (Gd -3). 6- Qatar 7pts (Gd -6). Last match day: Iran vs Syria. Uzbekistan vs S. Korea. Qatar vs China. S. Korea might even fail to make to the play-off providing they lose against Uzbekistan and Syria win against already qualified Iran. China can also make it to the play-off if other results work for their advantage. It will be interesting if war-stricken Syria managed to make to the WC or even the play-offs.
Iran really is impressive, they managed a draw against SK with 10 men. A few of their starters, especially Azmoun didn't even played in the match iirc.
Hmmm. I don't see any surprise happening here honestly. Uzbekistan are choke-masters (as proved once again today) and always fail to deliver away from home when it really matters. They should've secured the 3 points today. That said the last game is at home, so who knows... I expect a draw at most Syria probably won't defeat Iran at home too unless Iran "allows" it... they've been the real surprise of this group btw.