hopefully with Milligan gone to China – Spira (flu willing) and or Williams can partner Neill…. and Carle gets more than a token run on (i would settle for Vidosic/ Djite gettinga game)

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KB

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KB

The only real test of rankings is the World Cup – and we saw last time that Europe had 10 of the 16 spots in the last 16. Mind you, they have the most qualifiers! Other than that it was spread around pretty well. So the relative strength of Africa vs Asia vs CONCACAF is not all that different I don’t think.

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KB

There’s always an element of luck in these things. But the 32 teams will know who their pool opponents are, & who their 2nd round opponents & thereafter, might possibly be. They will know the drill. They just have to go out there & give it their best shot.

How could you possibly suggest FIFA is giving the yanks an easy ride? Shame on you!

I wonder if Italy still think there were conspiracy theories about in 2002 when they were ousted by Korea in a quarter final of diabolical decisions.

The problem there is that 4 years later in 2006, Italy got all the good fortune in spades against Australia in their 2nd round match. Well maybe that’s an exaggeration, the Italian defender shouldn’t have been sent off. But gee, I was ticked off with that last minute penalty, just like every other Aussie.

It would definitely be fairer. Not that the confederations would ever agree to it.

FIFAs problem is to grow the game in new markets (Asia and N America) develop it in establishing ones (Africa) and keep the old ones happy (SAmerica and Europe). If it was a World Cup where only the best teams got there – based on FIFA rankings maybe? =) – would that be “fairer” than regional qualification?

Whiskeymac – I think the best possible answer to your speculative question lies in the FIFA world rankings. I know these are much derided, but FIFA seems to really do its best to get these as correct as possible (nothwithstanding that any rankings system inevitably throws up some quirky results). For countries you mention, current rankings are Australia 29, Finland 49, Belgium 63, Iraq 77, Qatar 94, China 98, Kazakhstan 132. I realise that the difference between 60 and 70 is not great (just as with 60 and 70 rankings in tennis), but this does suggest that Finland and Belgium are, on average, more difficult opponents than Iraq, Qatar and China. In this context it’s worth remembering that Finland “have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup or the European Championship” (from Wikipedia on “Football in Finland”). On the other hand Belgium have a highly pedigreed World Cup record for a small nation. Either way, one comes to the obvious conclusion that Europe is a tough qualifying route. Still, if Australia really is as good as 29th in the world, then it could be optimistic of its chances of qualifying via Europe. This is a statement that implicitly recognizes Australia’s recent results against European teams, because these are all fed into the world ranking.

I tend to agree that CONCACAF has been a soft qualification route, although I could not possibly say whether it has been any softer than Asia.

What do we all think of the much-stated conspiracy theory that FIFA makes CONCACAF easy so that the USA can be at the World Cup?

my turn for a thought… I also wonder how well our top Asian teams would do in some of the euro qualifiers. take out the top two seeds in each group (and maybe some of those second seeds aren’t necessarily harder than Korea or Japan) and we might be a fair shot as a middling-fair euro team (well the trips to San Marino and luxembourg arent very daunting and probaly easier than playing indonesia). i splaying finland or belgium or kazakhstan much more onerous than Qatar, China or Iraq?

I back up whiskeymac’s comments above.

If the Asian conference is fundamentally weak because the same usual suspects qualify for every world cup, how do you explain South America, where Brazil & Argentina, & often Mexico, are perennial qualifiers?

Or Europe, where Italy, Germany, Spain, France & England, & probably Netherlands, have reached the point where they are virtually perennial qualifiers.

It should also be noted that of the 18 world cup editions contested to date, only 7 different countries have shared those 18 world cups, while a further 4 have played in at least one losing final. And this is a sport considered to have the greatest footprint on the planet.

The Asian conference is the best thing to happen to Australia. Unlike South America, where most countries speak Spanish, & have an Iberian (Spanish-Portuguese) culture, or Europe, which enjoys mostly a similar culture, Asia is extraordinarily varied in language, culture & religion.

There are massive distances to travel, across many time zones, to countries varying mightily in language, culture, religion & politics. It’s not only physically draining, but mentally & emotionally as well. If the quality is not yet there in the opposition, then the circumstances make it so.

It’s too easy to poo-poo the quality of the opposition, but make no mistake, its been tough, & the Socceroos & FFA should be congratulated for not taking anything for granted. If they had been any less committed or prepared, as perhaps they were at the previous Asian Cup, they would have been in a lot of trouble.

Another angle might be to say that qualification for South Korea and Japan is not “hard” in the sense that it is hard for the best teams in Africa.

The hope is that as depth grows in Asia, then the number of spots for Asia should increase. So the harder opposition for Japan and South Korea would be counterbalanced by the greater number of spots. (That said, more spots would probably only be achieved by expanding the WC from 32 to a larger number of teams – will that happen?)

I’m just tossing out a line of thought here … just a point of view, not necessarily correct …

The region may not have the heavies of Spain, Germany, Argentina or Brazil to contend with but holistically the process is still tough and demanding and as Asia creates an increased football professionalism (and more money being sown into Asian football) there will be more than just the Koreas, China, Iraq, Iran, Saudis and Japan. ie the Uzbeks (scoalri now at bukyandor (tashkent!?!) are throwing lots of money (despite dubious sources) into football, India could come good and other teams like Thailand, Bahrain aren’t that far off the mark. i wonder how, for example, the USA or Belgium (4-0 smacking aside in Japan) would do in the region?

If I can be permitted to take slight issue with you over one comment, viz. the ease of qualifying through Asia. Obviously it’s not easy, in the sense that it’s a long campaign and one can’t just turn up and expect to cruise through. However whiskeymac is correct: right from the moment of the draw for the final group stage, it was evident that we really got lucky with our group in comparison with the depth in the other group (the two Koreas, Saudi and Iran). On the other hand, one could argue that this was just an evening of the ledger for getting a tough group (China, Iraq, Qatar) before that.

Anyway, that’s not really my point. Rather, my point concerns something that I read: that this will be the 7th WC in a row for South Korea and the 4th for Japan. OK, they both got 2002 automatically, but that doesn’t change these numbers significantly. Given this and that Asia has had only 3 or 4 places during this period, it is striking that pretty much the same teams are getting through every time. One therefore has to think that qualification is not quite so hard as one might think for the best Asian teams.

I don’t claim to be a genius, but the ignorance of the human being on occasions defies logic. There’s more to qualifying for a world cup than merely the strength of the opposition. Plus what ‘whiskeymac’ said. But you just can’t get through to some people.

There’s also a disgraceful headline on the back page of today’s Daily Telegraph (10/06/06) titled ‘Fans Snub Hero Roos – and you can blame this man’ (pointing to photo of Verbeek).

We should be celebrating Verbeek for his achievements, & appreciating the ticklish situation with injuries, suspensions & other commitments.

But all the “dailly terror” is interested in is a grubby, slimy attempt at selling more newspapers. Obviously, these rugby league hugging hacks want to jump on the Socceroos bandwagon, & arrogantly expect seats right up the front of the bus.

Anyway, to Pim & the Socceroos, I salute you!

I wonder if Williams is a chance to play in these next two games?

Look at group b, its anyone’s guess who will come second or third. I wonder how we would have went in that group.

Excellent article…..agree with most of your ratings… a great read ..