In addition our borders are still closed. Recent major sports events like cricket tours and Tennis tournaments were only completed because international competitors completed two weeks in quarantine. In the case of the Indian Cricketers who toured they also had to undergo some further restrictions at times because of outbreaks in NSW and Queensland. The tennis players underwent a 5 day lockdown in Melbourne mid tournament where they were still allowed to train and play but couldn't do anything on the social side outside of that. Australian based players who travel to Nepal will likely have to quarantine on return. With 3 home games left in June if restrictions ease a bit we may be able to host some matches but it would probably only be if the players were placed in a bubble with no contact with the general public. More likely the last games in our group will be played in another location.
link to the AFC statement https://www.the-afc.com/competition...n-upcoming-asian-qualifiers-in-march-and-june
AFC have already (I haven't searched the link for you) made clear that if Qatar win the group the second placed team will be considered a second place team and the best 5 will qualify for the next round. If Qatar come second then the best 4 of the other second placed teams go through. Qatar need to complete all their matches as these games also qualify as Asian Cup qualifiers and if Qatar make the top 12 (even though they wont go to next round WCQ) they will qualify for the Asian Cup 2023.
I can understand Australia pulling out of the copa america since they haven't qualified for the next round yet. But why is Qatar pulling out as well? Their only interest in these qualifiers is the Asia cup and they have already qualified...
Possibly AFC would like Qatar to prioritise their own confederation's Championship ahead of another one and may have told them a withdrawal from the final matches of their group was a withdrawal from the Asian Cup as a whole. I'm only speculating here. I have no inside source of knowledge.
My own view is that you shouldn't be sending B teams to either World Cup Qualifiers or a Continental Championship, particularly one with the history of the Copa America.
Australia's game with Nepal has been postponed meaning all remaining group B games will be played in the June FIFA window at a central venue to be determined.
Japan just about scraped past Mongolia, 14-0. Here are the results: Tajikistan 3-0 Mongolia Mongolia 0-14 Japan (played in Chiba, Japan) Saudi Arabia 5-0 Palestine Looking forward to the next round of fixtures on June 3rd.
North Korea withdraw from FIFA World Cup qualifiers Report: North Korea pulls out of 2022 Qatar World Cup - SportsPro Media
AFC will have to decide how to handle unequal amounts of games played in Group H and possibly when comparing second place teams. Lebanon got a win and draw against North Korea and was the only team to play North Korea twice. South Korea, Lebanon, or Turkmenistan will finish second, and if it's South Korea or Turkmenistan then the second place teams could have to be compared excluding results against the fourth place teams. North Korea will finish fourth. If each group advanced the same amount of teams, I would suggest that Group H take out the games against North Korea and have the other teams finish with 6 games instead of 8. FIFA doesn't know that North Korea withdrew. The article says AFC will try to get them to change their mind, but they were scheduled to play in 25 days on June 3, so there's not a lot of time.
With North Korea one can never really know for sure but I believe the stated reasons were due to fears of covid 19 entering North Korea.
Steven Goff @SoccerInsider 1h Paramount+ continues to secure soccer rights: Asian World Cup qualifying for men and women, plus AFC club tournaments, industry source says. Effective this fall. Expecting further details this week.
Japan 10-0 Myanmar I wonder if Japan is the first team to score double-digits in consecutive qualifiers. They are the first team to advance to Round 3, and nobody else can advance on June 3. There is one more game before June 3 when China PR plays Guam on May 30.
Australia beat Tonga 22-0 and American Samoa 31-0 to score 53 goals in three days. There was only one day off in between. I wonder if it has ever happened other than OFC and what Japan just did. China beat Guam 7-0. North Korea's withdrawal un-eliminated Guam, and Guam was eliminated with today's loss. There are 55 games left. One team has 1 game, eight teams have 2 games, twenty-seven teams have 3 games, and three teams have 4 games. That adds up to 39 teams. Here is how many games will be on each day: June 3: 11 June 5: 3 June 7: 12 June 9: 3 June 11: 11 June 13: 1 June 15: 14
Also had an 11-0 win against Samoa that week but a 2-0 win a couple days before that stopped the double digit run. OFC went back to having the lower ranked teams play each other before Australia and New Zealand joined at the final six stage.
Guam traveled to China with only 16 players after Chinese authorities refused entry for the rest due to positive COVID-19 infections. The other three teams were also advised to undergo a period of quarantine as well, but AFC are determined to finish the matches by 15th June, and have decided to strip away the hosting rights from China. UAE is likely to be the hosts now.
UAE did become the host. There weren't many surprises yesterday. Palestine beat Singapore 4-0, but Palestine trails Uzbekistan by 2 points with Palestine having 1 game left and Uzbekistan having 3 games left. Today's only game is Maldives vs. Syria, and it just started. Maldives has a tiny chance to advance, and it's good enough that they can't be eliminated today. In the likely event that Syria wins, they will clinching advancing as a first or second place team. Qatar has already clinched being better than second place teams in three groups, so Syria needs to clinch over second place teams in three groups (not four), and they will do that with a win. Depending on how other groups go, China might need to beat or draw with Syria on the last matchday. The percent of the world's population in eliminated countries went way up yesterday because India was eliminated, and it will go way up again if China doesn't advance. 170 of 211 members of FIFA are still alive, which includes teams who haven't started qualifying.
China getting eliminated would be disastrous for them, considering that they won't get any competitive matches until the 2023 Asian Cup. That would be a huge waste of paperwork for those shiny new Brazilians.
After 07-June-2021 matches, following is the scenario (after excluding result of matches against 5th placed team in each group):
Following is the Points Tables (after 7th June 2021 matches) excluding 5th Place team matches result and fixture:
On group E Oman is not considered first and can only qualify as one of the best 5 second placed teams