News: AFC announced the draw mechanism of the 4th round

This is good for Iraq, "if We make it INSALLAH"

 

what the ******** is this? jordan china koreaDPR kuwait a head of Iraq,and even bahrain? I know we havent played good this last mounth but come on

 

bro i think this is from 4 years back, right now we are 8th in asia.

 

All a load of bull in my opinion, the draw mechanism should have been done right from the start. Now it could look like AFC are making things up as they go along.

Or whatever happened to a simple draw where anyone enters any group.

And whats the point in FIFA rankings when they are never used and we simply jump back in time which bascially always favours the previous big boys of Asia making it harder for none world cup entrants in 2006 to overhaul the old guard. Simply put Korea, Saudi and Japan must laugh at everyone else as they will always be favoured.

But then why are Australia number one, whent ehy weren't Asia in 2006? Surely there record is null and vois for this draw??

 

How would AFC seed us in that case?

 

Put you last.

Whats to say someone like Indonesia jumped in OFC for a few years, sneaked into the World Cup and then jumped back into AFC, then would it be fair to seed them as number 1 especially when they were a mid ranking team before, but if they were number 1 then they wouldn't have got stuffed by Syria but they would be a hell of a lot further than they did go.

It's not a good contrast with Australia really because we know they are good, but how can you give them a ranking and a better seed when they were not part of Asia for 2006 world cup.

But to be quite honest, the AFC should have done the whole draw in advance before round one ever started so everyone knew where they stood rather than the bickering that could happen now if someone is given a wrongful draw.

Generally the seeding system favours the big nations, who will just go from strength to strength and the lower ranked teams in this instance for Asia had their world cup dreams dashed way back in August 2007, so they have to wait 7 years to try again.

The draw in my opinion needs to be unseeded just like the FA Cup in England where Australia could draw Japan in Round One and Bhutan could draw Guam, but thats the luck of the draw, in this instance the draw is not luck, but more favourtism.

 

An unseeded draw would be stupid. I can imagine it

Group 1 - Australia, Japan, Saudi, Iran, South Korea
Group 2 - Uzbekistan, Iraq, Bahrain, North Korea, UAE


What a joke...

 

"simple draw where anyone enters any group."

bad idea... AFC is considered the weakest confederation, because... well... it is. Each year AFC bickers with FIFA that although Asia is the largest confederation, we get few berths---to this FIFA responds that our representatives always do poorly.

Suppose the "big teams" all get bundled into one group... knock out what measly firepower Asia has to offer and then send a "weaker" team to World Cup...

Guys... World Cup isn't like the Asian Cup. You discount 2002 and the only glorious moment Asia ever had in world cup was North Korea back in '66. South Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia who really have been the most consistent World Cup contenders never really do all that great. Now we have Australia and Japan, but these guys are honestly, not really better than SK, Iran, SA... Sure, teams like Uzbekistan will put up a good fight as any in asia. but you put up someone like... well.. i don't want to be villified so I'll let your minds wonder on their own...

Besides, if you think about it, if you don't seed, there is always a chance that your team that isn't seeded gets grouped with Australia, South Korea, and Iran. Well, that sorta sucks for you as much as it sucks for everyone in that group. heh, how is that really fair for the unseeded team in the "group of death"?

 

But isn't that what competition is about? Or would you rather just have an easy route to qualification all the time?

 

Ending up with a scenario like this one above would be disaster for Asian Football.

 

Exactly... How will this help Asia? The whole point is to send the best teams representing Asia. One can't just compromise the quality and send someone like UAE to the world cup? At least not for now.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the pots more or less anticipated before this announcement? The Korean media was already anticipating that Australia and Korea would be the two top seeds due to their performance at the latest world cup. Although the timing as someone mentioned earlier might smell fishy, but as you know the AFC doesn't do anything right anyway. What's new?

Actually, I would love to see a group like Korea, Australia, Saudi, Iran and Japan.

 

Another thing about this mechanism, why do we have two teams placed in seed four? Why can't they split them up now instead of waiting, and then there's Iraq, no matter what rank they would have been doesn't matter, because they get 5th spot either way if they qualify. It's like they were rubber stamped for 5th spot all along just to fit in with FIFA.

 

Not really since the big five can all be eliminated (I know this will hardly happen but AFC has to take this into their calculations).

 

Don't really see anything wrong with this mechanism. What's all the fuss about?

 

BS. AFC is obviously better than OFC, and in terms of depth it is definately better than C-CAF. No matter how the groups turn out ANY of the "big 5" could miss out - None of them are even guarenteed of getting to the final round yet. In C-CAF Mexico and USA are shoe ins.

So you think we should do the same thing in Uefa. Lets have Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Partugal and Netherlands in one group and only have 1 or 2 qualify for the WC. Fantastic cup that would be

It's hardly an easy qualification anyway - your still going to have a group with 3 of the "big 5" and then you still have Uzbekistan, Nth Korea, Iraq etc who can cause upsets

Most of the whinging here seems to be coming from smaller teams who want an easier draw and are pissed that they will have either 2 or 3 of the top teams in their group.

 

All this means is that AFTER the groups are decided Iraq will swap places with the 5th team in it's group (if not there already) so that it gets the bye when the Confed cup is on. Not a problem really.

 

MATCH SCHEDULE (TENTATIVE)
TWO GROUPS OF FIVE: HOME AND AWAY

MD 1: September 6, 2008 - 3 v 2, 5 v 4 (1 bye)
MD 2: September 10, 2008 - 4 v 1; 5 v 3 (2 bye)
MD 3: October 15, 2008 - 1 v 5; 2 v 4 (3 bye)
MD 4: November 19, 2008 - 5 v 2; 3 v 1 (4 bye)
MD 5: February 11, 2009 - 4 v 3; 2 v 1 (5 bye)
MD 6: March 28, 2009 - 2 v 3, 4 v 5 (1 bye)
MD 7: April 1, 2009 - 1 v 4; 3 v 5 (2 bye)
MD 8: June 6, 2009 - 5 v 1; 4 v 2 (3 bye)
MD 9: June 10, 2009 - 2 v 5; 1 v 3 (4 bye)
MD 10: June 17, 2009 - 3 v 4; 1 v 2 (5 bye)

Team 5 has the advantage here as it is the only match day that isn't a full FIFA date. Playing 1v2 on this date is stupid from the AFC as teams like Australia, Japan, Korea and Iran can have players missing because they can't be release from their clubs in Europe on time.

 

hahaha... good point. this is embarrassing, but the thought of OFC or even CONCAF didn't even occur to me.

woops, i only counted south america, europe, africa, and asia... where I can be forgiven for forgetting OFC, considering I live in US, it's rather embarrassing I forgot CONCAF.

so mea culpa.

 

When the seeding's were first brought out, Iran were seed 5 and Iraq were seed 12, assuming all teams ranked 1-4 qualify for the 4th stage and Iran also qualify, then they loose the seed that they previously had, making them play on a matchday that they may struggle to get players released for.

The seeds released before qualifying were for previous world cups, and Saudi Arabia were seed 3 and Japan seed 4, but since qualification began, AFC seem to have moved these two onto a par for seed 4.

Why can't AFC keep to what they said from the beginning and if Iraq get drawn to play during Confederation's cup, then simply just re-arrange their outstanding fixture

 

Very interesting to see that they're putting the final four teams in one pot, instead of just having 5 pots of 2. Weird.

And how is Iran suddenly 3rd instead of 5th? I mean, I know looking at the final 2006 World Cup standings, they should be 3rd. That's not a problem. I bet the AFC just didn't bother accurately doing the rating of the 3rd to 5th seeded teams since they were all just top seeds in the current round, so it didn't matter.

Anyway, here's the likely pots:

1-Australia, South Korea
2-Iran, Japan/Saudi Arabia
3-Japan/Saudi Arabia, Bahrain
4-North Korea, Qatar, UAE, Uzbekistan