Group B results, standings Australia v Saudi Arabia 0:0 Vietnam v Japan 0:1 China v Oman 1:1 -------------- 1- Saudi Arabia 13pts GD+5 2- Australia 10pts GD+5 3- Japan 9pts GD+1 4- Oman 7pts GD 0 5- China 4pts GD -4 6- Vietnam 0pts GD-7
It is nothing new Japan has lacked of quality of striker at the top. Their more serious problem lies in lack of quality of playmakers. It is pity that they have to rely on Kubo who is only 20 years old. That has a lot to do with their lack of scoring.
MD6 is upon us today.. KSA will be looking to finish of the away games trip on high with a win against Vietnam. Looking at the performance against Australia, the confidence is high and there is high probability the team will come out on a winning note. The match which will matter most for KSA is Oman vs Japan. If Oman manages to see of Japan again or atleast hold them up for draw, KSA will have bright chance to seal qualification in there next match at home against Oman. Another tricky trip is on cards with China playing against Australia. It will be a tricky trip for Aussies and any more slip up will add pressure on them with Oman and Japan fast approaching. I predict Australia will bounce back against China & will maintain pressure on KSA.
Vietnam has put good fight in every game thus far but their lack of physicality and size really hinder their performance.
KSA beats Vietnam 1-0. Very cagey encounter but credit goes to KSA to keep the momentum up. Hoping other teams to drop points.
If Japan (at Oman) and Australia (at China) win their games, Vietnam will be the first AFC team in this round mathematically eliminated from qualifying for the World Cup.
Half Time Australia 1 China 0 Maybe its the 2AM kick off my time but I'm not really enjoying this game so far. Glad we are leading but I don't think we are playing well. This is starting to remind me of our last campaign where we started well but then lost our way and finished up 3rd.
It seems Australia really enjoys being the playoff team Group B results, standings Vietnam v Saudi Arabia 0:1 China v Australia 1:1 Oman v Japan 0:1 -------------- 1- Saudi Arabia 16pts GD+6 2- Japan 12pts GD+2 3- Australia 11pts GD+5 4- Oman 7pts GD -1 5- China 5pts GD -4 6- Vietnam 0pts GD-8
Not really, but if its the best you can do then its the best you can do. The only way we can guarantee a top two spot now is to win our last 4 games. Not an easy task.
They'll be disappointed to find out that Uruguay may not even qualify as Conmebol's 5th place team this time...
If the last two games are how we are going to perform from now on then it may be Oman in the playoffs (or someone from Group A) and not us.
I am pretty sure if Australia doesn't qualify directly, the playoff spot would be your's. By now, Australia have a proprietary interest in any intercontinental World Cup qualifying playoffs Out of curiosity: who holds the record for most participation in intercontinental World Cup qualifying playoffs? I know Australia has altogether participated in 9 such playoffs, qualifying using that route to 3 World Cups (WC74, WC 2006, and WC 2018} . I am pretty sure that's a record (mostly courtesy of when they were in the OFC). And they may get the chance to add to their tally this time around too.
We have had a two leg playoff a number of times to qualify for the world cup (mostly unsuccessful). We have also had a few to even get to the final stage. This goes back to our first attempt for 1966. The list is 1966 Lost To North Korea after everyone else in Africa and Asia withdrew. 1970 Lost to Israel. had a playoff against Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to get to that stage after winning a group consisting of Japan and South Korea and us. 1974 Won against South Korea (needing a replay). Had a playoff against Iran before that and won a group stage before that. AFC/OFC had four groups where the winners then played semi final playoffs and a final playoff 1978 OFC winner entered a final Asian group consisting of 5 teams. I think we came 4th from memory and Iran Qualified. 1982 New Zealand won OFC and we didn't progress to the final stage of AFC/OFC qualifying. 1986 Won OFC and played Scotland in a playoff after AFC successfully lobbied to remove OFC from their qualifying and have two guaranteed qualifiers. 1990 Israel won OFC and we didn't make the playoffs 1994 Won OFC, then won a playoff against Canada and lost a playoff against Argentina 1998 Won OFC and lost a playoff against Iran 2002 Won OFC and lost a playoff against Uruguay 2006 Won OFC and then won a playoff against Uruguay 2010 Now AFC member. Qualified directly as group winner. 2014 Qualified as group runner up 2018 3rd in Group. Won playoff against Honduras. I've only included playoffs against teams from other confederations (at the time we played them) so not including the Syria playoff from last time. OFC often had the top two teams playoff home and away so they don't count either. I count 9 intercontinental playoffs for a World Cup spot, with a further 3 to even get that far. If you count Syria that takes it to 13. If you count OFC playoffs it adds 4 more (1994 through to 2006).
I will add that I was too young to remember the North Korea playoff (I was 4 in 1965) but I remember all the others and was present for all the ones in Sydney except the Israel one in 1969.
I am not that young either but don't remember any football games until around 1973 and specifically the 1974 WCQ, where Iran had to face Australia in a playoff. In the first leg in Australia, Iran (at the time,back-to-back Asian Cup champions) lost 3:0! I remember getting literally sick after that match. In the return match in Tehran, Iran jumped ahead 2:0 inside the first 30 minutes but Australia held on to win 3:2 on aggregate. (We made amends for that loss to Australia, beating Australia both in Australia and Tehran in a unitary final AFC/OFC group to qualify as the sole AFC/OFC team in WC78). But what remains perhaps the most memorable match in the history of Iranian football, even more so than our famous win against the US in WC98, is the game dubbed "the Miracle in Melbourne", where an Iranian team that had entered the game so nervous they would sometimes fumble the ball on their own, being badly outplayed and trailing 2:0 (when it could have been 5:0 or worse), suddenly and almost miraculously, scored 2 goals to qualify to the World Cup on away goals. I will never forget that game and I am sure you remember it too,
Australia's current coach, Graham Arnold, incidentally came into the match as a late sub after Iran had equalized.
So, I am 41, Iranian Monitor is almost 50, and Almango is 60. Great to know that Almango is keeping up his interest in the game, hope he continues with the same spirit with non-bias approach.
In my younger days I was a Rugby League referee (and a referees coach for many years after that) which, despite what a lot of fans think, actually turns you into an observer of sports rather than a partisan fan. I'm still fairly partisan in terms of the national team, but my opinions tend to be observations. For example I'm very disappointed in how our team performed in the last two days, particularly the China game. We should have got 6 points to keep qualification on track but managed only two. Saudi Arabia deserve credit for outplaying us tactically and while I think a draw was probably a fair result, we could easily have lost this game in the last 15 minutes. Against China we were just disappointing all through. This was also a fair result. I didn't think China improved that much on their first effort against us, but we have dropped a long way off the pace. We can't compete against Saudi Arabia and Japan with efforts like that, and will need a bit of luck in Oman to hang on to 3rd. Another poster described us as group stage fodder, but I think we need to improve to even reach that level. If we make the IC playoff current form would have us the weakest of the 4 teams.
I think you will be strong in upcoming home games (against Vietnam and Japan) and would end up with 6 points from these 2 games. Oman game will be tricky and should go for win while a point in this game will be not bad as well. I do believe and feel that Japan will drop points in China and Saudi games and might well end up losing any one of these games so Australia still has a decent chance of securing any of the top 2 position. Japan is not as strong team as it used to be before say, 6 years ago. Now, teams do not fear Japan anymore.
Wow! All three of you are much older than what I thought. You Hammad_friend are 10 years older than me. Based on what I saw so far, Saudi Arabia looks the strongest team to me out of all 12 teams until the match day 6. If Iran is not the second one, we should definitely be at least third strongest one until match day 6. We will see what happens in the future. Also being the strongest team in Asia WCQs does not guarantee that you are going to have the best world cup result and performance among all qualified Asian teams.
While its not always a guide, the qualifying results last time reflected the performances of the teams in the world cup. The group winners ended up with 4 points, the runners up with 3 and the playoff winner with 1.