I disagree. I think South Korea is about a safe bet as any team in the world to qualify. They've been in every World Cup since 1986.
Here are the ranks of the reamining eight asian teams according to fifa #1 Japan 17 #2 Iran 20 #3 South Korea 21 #4 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 30 #5 Bahrain 48 #6 Uzbekistan 51 #7 Kuwait 60 #8 Korea DPR 96. Please note that Bahrain improved over fifty spots since the last world cup, when they shocked Iran and KSA advanced in WCQ 2002. Can North Korea be the next Bahrain?
Could the U.S. forfeit the away leg of the playoff and still go through? For example, if we beat North Korea in the U.S. 5-0, and we just don't show up in North Korea for the other leg of the playoff, what happens?
From SherwinRazmy "My dear friend Andygus: If you travel to Iran I promise that you would be treated like a king. I am not Persian but my parrents use to live in Iran. I am of Russian and Turkish decent and when I visited Iran, they treated me well. I even told them that I was from America and they got excited. The people over there are friendly to foreigners, especially to the rare Americans that get to travel over there." Sherwin, while I don't doubt what you are saying. I would fear that in a highly publicized event like the US team travelling in Iran for a match where the winner advances to the World Cup would be that an extremist group could sieze upon that moment to make a statement. I agree that the typical Iranian would welcome us. What would scare me is that a militant group could use that stage to do something. If there is a terrorist element in Iran, what better for them than a group of US Soccer fans travelling there. With only minimal digging they would have no trouble at all finding out when we would arrive, where we would be staying, where we would likely eat, and our rout to the stadium. Then, if they did their deed, it would make front page news around the world. Very easy, very high profile. Again, I would feel safe going to Iran for a visit individually or with a small group, to meet people, and get to know them. I am not sure I would feel safe traveling as a group of Americans to a high profile event there. . . or, to be honest, to many places in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia for example. If American contractors cannot feel safe there, why should I, a football fan, wearing a US flag around my neck?
That is what they may be credited with, however, I don't see FIFA letting us, or anyone else, get away with something like that. We would likely be banned from the Cup.
Are any other of the Hexagonal Teams bad terms with these asian countries, Would they receive alot of hostility as well?
There has to be a rule about this. Otherwise every team that won the first leg of a home and home by at least 3 goals could just forfeit the other leg to ensure an aggregate victory.
I don't think any of the other Hex teams have enough international importance to be on bad terms with other teams on the other side of the globe. The only possible incident I can think of would be some sort of religious conflict between the more extreme fans/players of an Islamic team and the more extreme fans/players of a very Catholic country like Mexico. Even this I doubt would be a problem.
The standard line on this (SK/Japan/KSA/Iran to qualify 1-4 with Bahrain/Uzbek fighting it out for 5th) does make sense, and if I had to place a bet on specific teams qualifying, that's where my money'd be. However, I woudl never take such a bet because I've seen enough WCQ to know that things almost NEVER work out the way everyone expects. Upsets are so frequent that they're almost the norm. I'd thus say it's very likely that one of the big 4 bites it and either gets only the playoff spot or doesn't even make it to 5th. Of the teams I've seen I think KSA is likeliest for this spot. They were last in their Asia Cup group behind even Turkmenistan and Iraq (Uzbekistan won the group), and were easily the worst team at WC02, stinking up the joint to the tune of 0-3 and -12 GD with 0 GS. They made USA 98 look respectable by comparison. As for upset teams, I think Bahrain is the one to watch out for. They got to the semis of Asia Cup 04 where they barely lost to eventual champ Japan AET. FWIW, the team Bahrain beat to get to the semis was Uzbek, who they squeaked by on penalties. In any case, I like that Asia is getting a few more powerful teams in the mix. I still think it's an utter travesty that they received 4.5 WC spots, though.
On the other hand, it will be nice to see that #5 team get to prove its worth by playing someone from another continent in a meaningful pair of games. For the record, I agree with you. I fully expect CONCACAF to have 4 teams in Germany. It seemed like Asia whined and griped about not getting a full 5 spots based on how well two host countries did in '02, and the number of countries and populations of said countries on their continent. Completely ignoring the fact that the host teams ALWAYS do well, and it's not necessarily a true measure of their quality. The great thing about this is that how their 5th team does will probably determine whether they get to keep that spot next time around. (Then again, next time around, Africa will probably claim that spot outright since S. Africa gets in automatically (and won't that be interesting if S. Africa fails to make this tournament?))
In recent WCs, concacaf's 3 spots and Africa's 5 spots were put into a pot of 8. This was possible since no concacaf nor African team was seeded. Each of the 8 groups would pick one team from that pot. What it meant to us was that we would not play an African team in the group stage. But if there are 4 concacaf teams and 5 African teams, and none of them seeded, it is almost certain that 1 concacaf team, probably the 4th qualifer, will play an African team.
asia will have two groups of 4 to determine wc finalists... The top 2 teams in each group qualify directly to the World Cup, while the 3rd place finishers go into the playoff, one of them eventually playing a Concacaf team for the right to be in Germany 2006. so if we assume japan, south korea, saudi arabia, and iran are the clear TOP 4, and three of these get drawn into ONE group...then one of these would be a 3rd place finisher...and hugh odds they'd advance to play concacaf 4th place.... saprissa and azteca are far more hostile environments than any ASIAN venue...tehran has a huge massive stadium with 150,000 , but the pitch is so far away from the stands, the intimidation factor isn't all that huge... look at the Aussie visit there in 1997....draw and ireland in 2001....
Good point, Z. I looked for and found some pics of Azteca and Tehran. I'm thinking that the Guatemalans (my pick for fourth) will be far more intimidated by Azteca than Tehran. Azadi Stadium: Azteca:
I think a forfit is like a 3-0 or a 3-1 loss. WHen North Korea played against Irain in Iran, they walked away from the game after Iran scored, because a fan threw a fire cracker at the North Korean player, and they thought it was a bomg. Turns out it was a fire cracker and Fifa gave NK a 3-1 loss for forefiting. I don't know if it would be the same thing in our situation.
whatever...they were going to give the world cup to japan before japan ever qualified for the tournament. '98 was the first time they qualified. the only reason korea also got the tournamnet was that it was utter bull********** that a country that never previously made the tournament was going to host it.
for the 1998 world cup, I have an iranian friend who gave me tapes for all the iranian wolrd cup qualifying matches.... the interesting aspect of the tapes was how BIG home field adantage was .... teams like Bahrain would disappear in tehran, lose by three goals..and then in the return trip reverse the scoreline... has anyone found the ASIAN draw yet...I just checked fifa but didn't see it??
According to someone on the Asian boards, the draw is December 9. So the reason you can't find it is that it hasn't happened yet
I had some concerns about this, remembering how China made it in through the last cup (Iran and Saudi *happened* to get drawn in the same group). However, again, from the Asia boards, they're saying that the teams have already been split into 4 pots by the highest FIFA ranked pair, next highest ranked pair, etc. That is: Assuming this is true, then there's no way that three of the top four would end up in the same group.
Let's say that the US really chokes and ends up in the AFC/CONCACAF playoff against Iran or NK (but especially Iran). What are the chances that both the home and away games are shifted to neutral sites? Especially now that there is sabre-rattling between the US and Iran just like before we invaded that country to its west.
If, by some chance, the US slips to fourth and has to play Iran/North Korea, we could very well see this series played in neutral sites. FIFA did move the U-20 championship last year from March to December to avoid the whole conflict, so moving two games won't be hard.
ireland did play in iran post 9-11 in the play-off between those nations.... all depends how politcally convenient bush decides to be end of 2005.... war with iran is far more difficult than iraq, and we all see how dismal a failure the riaq campaign ahs been... North korea could kill 10 million in seoul if they wished..