By David Wiseman
June 13th 2009 @ 2:33am
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We’ve qualified for the World Cup properly this time
The Socceroos agaist Qatar in their World Cup qualifier against Qatar in Doha in June. AAP Images
With the exception of the Oceanic 11 (for a long time, World Cup qualifying felt like Lost), every other country in the world is placed in a round-robin group. A certain number at the top of the group advance and you keep on advancing until you reach the promised land.
During the campaign, you can afford a slip-up here or there but ultimately the side that is the most consistent over the long term is rewarded.
A qualifying campaign which began in February 2008 is just winding up now.
Over the course of that, Australia would have played in 14 matches – matches that until they were rendered dead rubbers meant something.
Sure, Qatar and Bahrain aren’t world beaters. But they are significantly better than having to play the likes of Fiji and American Samoa.
New Zealand topped Oceania qualifying in November 2008 and will be waiting a year until their next World Cup qualifiers. That is one of the things I hated the most about World Cup qualifying when the Socceroos were in Oceania.
Some of Australia’s games weren’t on FIFA dates, which created the whole club Vs country conflict. That was bad enough. But then when the rest of the world were having their World Cup qualifiers, we weren’t doing anything.
It was if we were in some bizarro universe.
The only time that people paid the Socceroos any attention was when it was time for the dreaded play-off.
Why did Australia need to be in a play-off?
For every other country in the world, the play-off was a repechage. It was a second bite of the cherry.
In the FIFA world, some countries were less equal than others and Australia was one of them.
The new system is remarkably stress free and will hopefully be the start of a streak where it never misses out on qualifying for another World Cup.
Of course, old headaches will be replaced by new ones. The main one being how the Socceroos fare at the World Cup itself.
Much of that will depend on the draw.
In Germany, Australia had the benefit of being drawn with an Asian team, something that it won’t have again.
If it placed in a Group of Death, it could be all over before it’s even begun.
A new era means new challenges and hopefully the team, the public and the media all understand this.
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Ramirez said | June 13th 2009 @ 6:24am | Report comment
I don’t know whats the point in having the OFC nowadays. For most of the football world it is not a problem to have New Zealand playing a WC qualifying playoff with Saudi Arabia or Iran once in every 4 years, but it is definately a problem when you have Waitekere United playing the FIFA World Club Cup. Why not merge the AFC with the OFC?
whiskeymac said | June 13th 2009 @ 8:23am | Report comment
ramirez – fair point but i think the problem is is that asia is already “massive” geographically. a confederation stretching from the med to half way in the pacific would be an expensive one to have teams shuttled about in. ultimately i like the oft raised point of splitting asia into 2 – east and west, and oceania could be tacked onto the east. but the federations would need to be a lot stronger than they are now to survive divided. secondly i think oceania’s population is so small and scattered that it’s not really going to have add much value on its own.
david, i too prefer being in a long world up campaign in line with the rest of the world. better for the players development, the coaches, revenue, exposure etc… although the one of dramas are great spectacles that excite neutrals they only havea short term impact – and when we lost very short term – this format is so much better for the game and it’s development.
as for not being ina group with an asian team..well, yes that is going to be “interesting”. no easy games at the WC, but some games are certainly easier than others.
Ben of Phnom Penh said | June 13th 2009 @ 8:38am | Report comment
The longer qualification process is far better for our team development and certainly something I prefer as I’ve been watching games regularly for one a half years as opposed to two games over a week. Still, let us not believe it will always be a cakewalk…… just ask Iran.
MVDave said | June 13th 2009 @ 9:06am | Report comment
Dont know about the Asian Qualifying path being stress free. Certainly this time the Socceroos did it well but…if China had scored their last minute penalty, if Bahrain/Japan had converted their dominance into goals in their home ties etc etc. IMO the Asian route will become prgressively more difficult especially as countries such as China, Qatar, etc pour millions into their development programs.
Certainly the Asian route allows for some mistakes to be made and still get through unlike the one off play offs.
In terms of interest in the qualifying process there is no comparison. In past campaigns all has been focused into a 1-2 week period now it is spread over 18-24 months. Financially FFA are much better off…assuming 70,000 at the MCG on Wednesday then over 375,000 (120,000 in Melb, just under 170,000 in Sydenee and nearly 90,000 in Brisbane) fans have watched home games alone (at very high ticket prices) ve less than 100,000 last itme (including Oceania qualifyers), media has reported closely on 14 games vs 2 last time, TV has telecast 14 games vs 2 last time (including new record audiences for Foxsports), players who would be unknown in the past are now being debated in the media/public as to whether they are worthy eg Holman, McDonald.
The spikes of attention aren’t as high as last time, nor the high emotions but neither are the lows…the Socceroos have been in the news almost consistently over an 18 month period.
In future qualifying periods there will be greater highs and lows no doubt but equally the vast majority of football fans prefer the Asian route. The FFA have also (hopefully) learnt a great deal so some changes can be made to the next series in 2013.
The fact that Australia has made it so comfortably is down to the excellent work by the coaches and players who have yet to receive the full media/public plaudits their efforts deserve.
What an exciting 12 months we have ahead of us…cant wait.
hugie said | June 13th 2009 @ 10:24am | Report comment
As far as the draw is concerned we can still end up with a team from CONCACAF (IMO the weakest confederation bar Oceania) and Africa (who aren’t easy but are beatable…see our results vs Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa in recent years). Yes we could cop a group of death but I’d prefer to cop a group of death in South Africa than not qualify!
Joe FC said | June 13th 2009 @ 1:19pm | Report comment
nice article David although like MVDave I didn’t find the qualifying process stress free. Also as Ben says there can be no certainity about qualifying in future campaigns. China will eventually get its act together & the bench mark will be raised.
dasilva said | June 13th 2009 @ 2:26pm | Report comment
The issue between OFC joining Asia is a bit complicated. the only side in OFC that would really benefit from that is New Zealand. The other pacific islanders side will quite likely will play less matches then they would have in the OFC (a home and away AFC WCQ preliminaries playoff to reach the group stages where they most likely be eliminated beforehand and 3 AFC Challenge Cup qualification matches where they most likely be knocked out in the group stages). THe AFC may not let OFC nations clubs play in the AFC President Cup (you must have an ‘acceptable football league’ to be allowed entrance in that competition).
The OFC nations already have a OFC nation cup and a regular WCQ campaign as well as a OFC Champions League for the clubs sides.
I don’t think the future is OFC joining Asia but more of Asia letting the champions of OFC to play in the final group stages of the WCQ.
dasilva said | June 13th 2009 @ 2:28pm | Report comment
Yeah I agree with this article that it’s nice to have a proper World Cup qualification campaign. I believe we would have qualified to the world cup far more often if it we weren’t shafted by FIFA.
Captain Random said | June 13th 2009 @ 4:03pm | Report comment
I have previously stated a desire to see Asia split geographically but I would be more than happy to see the Oceania champions in the final group stage of AFC qualifying. It would be great for New Zealand’s development (well, that’s who is most likely to make it). One question: should they also be allowed into the Asian Cup?
whiskeymac said | June 13th 2009 @ 6:48pm | Report comment
let NZ in and then we can resolve the Nix issue easily
Mick said | June 13th 2009 @ 7:45pm | Report comment
If Australia were in the other group it would of been much more difficult as all the coutries in the other group have played at world cup(s) & are up a notch on qatar, uzbekistan & bahrain although I thought the uzbeks would of been alot better than they have shown
David V. said | June 13th 2009 @ 9:25pm | Report comment
Mick, that’s all true. But also that the Asian WCQs are a far more accurate (besides Uzbekistan’s unexpectedly poor showing) reflection of the teams in the region than the last Asian Cup ever was. Iraq were unfortunate not to get out of their group though, but the gap in quality in Asia was reflected in the fact that Indonesia and Vietnam had looked good in the Asian Cup but were comprehensively beaten in the World Cup qualifiers.
jimbo said | June 13th 2009 @ 11:09pm | Report comment
Here’s the current FIFA World’s top 8 ranked teams that will make up Pot A at this year’s World Cup draw and pull Australia’s ball out of the jar:
Spain, Netherlands, Germany Italy, Brazil, England, Argentina and Croatia.
We’ve played all of them, except Spain, in the past few years and done pretty well against them.
It won’t be the most entertaining game of football you’ve ever seen, but I’m sure Pimbo could manage a draw against anyone of these Pot As in round 1.
Albert Ross said | June 13th 2009 @ 11:13pm | Report comment
Based on the more accurate ELO rankings AFC-A was a relatively harder group. Even if you drop the lowest ranked side the groups were even-stevens on average ranking.
Australia 35
Japan 20
Bahrain 57
Qatar 80
Uzbekistan 71
Average: 53
Korea Rep 34
DPRK 72
Saudi Arabia 44
Iran 40
UAE 112
Average 60
The logical thing for FIFA to do is rack the East Asian countries off to a Desert Zone (with perhaps 1.5 places in the WC) where they can’t do much harm either politically or on the field. This would leave a West Asian Zone that would be very strong with great TV appeal and plenty of money. The OFC could be integrated into the WAZ with the tiny countries having a nice little comp with subsidized travel to play in as they already do in the AFC, And everyone would live happily ever after.
I keep trying to call Großonkel Seppi to discuss this but “the girl” always says he is in a meeting. Sigh.
David V. said | June 14th 2009 @ 12:59am | Report comment
And here’s the fallacy of using FIFA rankings. They are prone to skewing and fail to accurately reflect the real quality of teams.
A team like Montenegro, the newest kid on the block in Europe, is ranked in the low 100s yet is of far far better quality, player-wise, than many of the teams above.
Captain Random said | June 14th 2009 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
IIRC, after Italy won the 2006 WC, their FIFA ranking improved … to 5th. I stopped taking them seriously after that.
Albert Ross said | June 14th 2009 @ 4:31pm | Report comment
Montenegro’s ranking? what has that got to do with the price of fish? We were discussing the relative strengths of the two Asian groups using an available metric ie. ELO Rankings which are arguably more statistcally relevant than the ones that FIFA publishes.
For the record Montenegro’s ELO rank is currently 55 which somewhat flatters the team which represents a country with a population smaller than most western Sydney LGAs.
The rank flatters them because the 2009 form of “The Brave Falcons” has been a bit patchy to say the least with 2 draws (including one against fellow “powerhouse” Cyprus) and a loss to Italy.
Regardless of which zone they are playing they are destined to be amongst those who make up the numbers like Wales. So don’t expect to be bawling out ” Oh, Bright Dawn of May,” at a WC final any time soon.
westy said | June 14th 2009 @ 11:37pm | Report comment
I am less inclined now too be concerned about Oceania being included in new Asian groupings when one goes through the roll call of some of Europ’e finest Andorra/Albania/ Faroe Islands/Channel Islands/ Monaco/Luxembourg/Liechtenstein/Moldava/Slovakia/Slovenia/Malta/Cyprus/San Marino/Vatican/Bosnia/ Macedonia/Montenegro/Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania/Iceland and if one gets really nasty Northern Ireland/Wales etc. please note this is not an attack on the people or cultures of these nations just to say some might be classed as merely distinct neighbourhoods.
Not all those within european qualifying groups are the vaunted powerhouses some would have us believe.
Note this does not mean a small nation cannot be a powerhouse eg Holland /Denmark or Croatia just that the scale of some European group participants do not embarrass the likes of Fiji / or even the Soloman Islands.
jimbo said | June 15th 2009 @ 12:01am | Report comment
The rankings used for the World Cup are the FIFA rankings and I don’t think we should fear any of the top eight too greatly, but will be interesting to see who else we will come up against with some more likely upsets and higher ranked teams than us not making it.
Captain Random said | June 16th 2009 @ 2:34pm | Report comment
westy -
Some of those you listed aren’t FIFA members in their own right (Monaco, Channel Islands, Vatican).