Jump to content

Asian Cup [R]


gold_football

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 59
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I would say that Australia should make the semis and may choke thereafter. Are South Korea, Iran, and Japan really such slouches that more than one of them couldn't possibly stand in their way? Japan will be alright but I think there are already problems in the camp, club fatigue, winner's fatigue (with a few of their best players already having won the Asian Cup before), and selection issues (really I have never seen a national program punish it's stars who ply their trade overseas so often as Japan - the J-League is miles better than it was ten years ago, but is their no room for the lads playing top level in Italy, Austria, etc?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Korea has not looked good of late. Seeing them against Uruguay, and against Holland they just simply weren't good enough. Coach Pim Verbeek made a point of trashing the team after the Dutch loss, but they did bounce back to beat UAE.

As always, Korea will be a top team in this tournament. They are a good team that has not performed to their ability in some time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by amacpher

Australia must now beat Thailand (in Thailand) by 2 goals to advance out of the group stage.

Actually, it's possible that a win by 1 goal would be enough (likely), but it's also possible that a win by 2 goals would not be enough (unlikely).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Australia'll do it. No worries. Most of the big countries have looked terrible - look no further than Japan. It still might be an Australia Japan final. This tournament reminds me so much of the Gold Cup becuase some of the games have literally only hundreds in attendance. FIFA wants the world to care about regions like Asia and CONCACAF, but these regions themselves don't really give a toss. Add to that that on any call that is remotely close, you can flip a friggin' coin to guess what the ref will do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hard to prove much in these second-rate tournaments. Apart from the Euro (and in some cases the Copa America), we don't see enough teams bring their first teams and/or play like first teams to draw any substantial conclusions vis-a-vis the "true" ranking of a club or it's potential in the World Cup.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by DJT

Actually, it's possible that a win by 1 goal would be enough (likely), but it's also possible that a win by 2 goals would not be enough (unlikely).

I don't see how.

Or is the first tie-breaker head-to-head?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by amacpher

I don't see how.

Or is the first tie-breaker head-to-head?

It's a moot point now, but, yeah, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head, so even a 1-0 Australian win would have put them ahead of Thailand. But if Australia had won 2-0 and Oman had beaten Iraq by a score of, say, 5-3 (this is where "unlikely" comes in) then all four teams would have had 4 points and Iraq and Oman would have been ahead of Australia and Thailand on goals scored.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4-1 Japan over Vietnam in Vietnam, with the home team getting the first goal and a ton of support. Neat to see a minnow (and a hosting minnow) playing spoiler for the first part of the game until Japan got themselves together. Japan's defense is like swiss cheese and is really suffering the loss of guys like Miyamoto and even defensive mid Nakta Koji. The temp. was 37 degrees with humidy between 50 and 65 percent - an absolute killer out there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by nolando

4-1 Japan over Vietnam in Vietnam, with the home team getting the first goal and a ton of support. Neat to see a minnow (and a hosting minnow) playing spoiler for the first part of the game until Japan got themselves together. Japan's defense is like swiss cheese and is really suffering the loss of guys like Miyamoto and even defensive mid Nakta Koji. The temp. was 37 degrees with humidy between 50 and 65 percent - an absolute killer out there.

Vietnam weren't playing spoilers. They could've been eliminated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Uzbekistan cruising to a 3-0 win over China. China's back four looked disinterested on set pieces. There's something seriously wrong with the Chinese national team and it's not lack of talent. They can't seem to come back when they're a goal down, not enough heart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And I thought they had arrived on the Asian soccer map a few years ago - here they are straight back in the gutter.

Can't wait for Japan vs Australia. Revenge for Japan's 3-1 loss in Germany or further confirmation that Australia is better than any team in Asia?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quarter Finals:

July 21st

QF 3 Japan vs. Australia (Hanoi)

QF 1 Iraq vs. Vietnam (Bangkok)

July 22nd

QF 2 Iran vs. South Korea (Kuala Lumpur)

QF 4 Saudi Arabia vs. Uzbekistan (Jakarta)

Semi-Finals:

July 25th

Winner QF 1 vs. winner QF 2 (Kuala Lumpur)

Winner QF 3 vs. winner QF 4 (Hanoi)

Third Place game, July 28th at Palembang

Finals, July 29th at Jakarta

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...