So Far

Australia: 0 Pts
Japan: 1 Pt
South Korea: 1 pt
Iran: 1 pt

In 8 matches as a collective we have collected 3 pts, i have to admit i thought Japan at least would of turned out a bit better maybe even Korea.


Iran have got a pt but the football they 're playing is embarrassing at best. I have to admit there is a real possibility that Asia wont have a team in the final 16. Which i think is pretty disappointing.

I know Australia played well but beside that i've watch every team from the AFC and have to admit we have really struggled on the park this world cup (esp in-front of goals).

I wouldn't be surprised if we lost our .5 of a world cup spot next time around due to such a poor showing...



Edited by Davstar: 23/6/2014 11:41:18 AM

Yeah because Australia was never dominant against Chile or the Netherlands, leading the latter, Iran never held Argentina until Messi's 91st minute strike while themselves creating chances, Korea never held one of Europe's best teams with one of Europe's most celebrated coaches to a draw as did Japan.

The story of this World Cup edition is great performances by minnows and giants falling hard and fast. Have you even been watching?

Yea, should have parked the bus.

Japan and South Korea have been very disappointing. They have neat possession in midfield, but they haven't looked genuinely dangerous.

Iran may be boring, but they're playing to their plan pretty well. Not my preferred style, but they have a very good chance to progress now.

This obsession in Australia with 'performances' is embarrassing. Results matter at this level, you dont get bonus points for "holding out Argentina until the 91st minute" or dominating in periods.

The facts are - 3 points in 8 games. 0 wins. 7 GF, 14 GA.

You can paint it any way you want, but at the end of the day it's a very poor result. Out of the 4 sides, 3 are technically still in with a shot of progressing but their chances are slim at best.

Having said that, the European and African sides havent been much better. It's really only the COMNEBOL and CONCACAF confederations who can say that they've performed at a reasonable level as a collective.

If my calculations are correct, European sides have only won about 30% of their games against non-European opposition. They're not doing a good job of putting the "European nations dont perform outside of Europe" stereotype to bed.

Yea i have

Iran parked the bus against Arg and played horrible football!

I saw Japan toothless against a 10 men Greece!!

The South Koreans were down 4-nil last night (against Algeria!) and the only reason they got a pt against Russia was due to a GK error.

I agree we have played well but i think you have to be smoking the pipe if u think Asia has actually done well

Minows have played well Costa Rica, USA etc but none of the Asian teams have preformed. Im proud of Australia but 0 pts is still 0 pts

and in 8 Games the fact is Asia has 3 pts to show for it which imo is pathetic!

I think maybe you should watch some football instead of reading articles and hitting up the highlights on foxsport champ...





Edited by Davstar: 23/6/2014 12:54:56 PM

Further to this, aside from Costa Rica and possibly the US, how many 'minnows' have actually caused the 'giants' to fall?

Portugal's issues were caused by Germany.
England's were caused by Uruguay and Italy.
Spain by Holland and Chile.
Argentina have been troubled but are still on 6 points.

So really, which giants have been knocked off by minnows?

I agree with you but at this moment i n time Australians mindset is fixated on performances. Onwards to Asian Cup and Russia 2018.

But this isnt about just Australia im talking about our confederation. We are part of the ACF we have 'preformed well' dont get me wrong but when you look at the AFC as a whole i would of thought at least 1-2 teams would be on 3-4 pts at this stage...

geez its not over yet and look at the 2006 results*

Iran 1
Japan 1
South Korea 4
Saudi Arabia 1

none of them progressed and still asia kept its .5

for the most part Aisa always do fuck all at the world cup.

*australia didn't qualify through asia and doesn't count imo.

Edited by RDSA: 23/6/2014 02:03:13 PM

Remaining games:

Oz - Spain
Japan - Colombia
BiH - Iran
Algeria - Russia

Finishing on 0 wins isnt completely out of the question. I doubt that any spots will get taken away though. Allocation is just as much about money/audiences as it is about performance.

-PB

Algeria-Russia doesn't really have anything to do with the AFC. :p
and you've missed South Korea vs Belgium. :d

FWIW, I reckon Iran has the best chance of getting anything from the remaining games.

Whoops... time for another coffee :lol:

I think we are doing well enough. No team has really been embarrassingly outclassed the teams like China and Saudi Arabia were 12 years ago. We aren't picking up the points but we are making the other confederations work very hard to take them off us.

Uruguay was beaten by a minnow, as was Italy.
I don't know if you would class Chile as a minnow, but beating Spain was considered an upset.
Portugal struggled against USA and was lucky to walk away with a draw when in reality, Portugal should of won comfortably.

Asian teams haven;t done well because none of the hot weather teams have made it. Iran is at altitude at about 1000m so that keeps things cool there. Australia has tropical areas though no teams there anymore but has players from Europe and are facing tough teams in the cooler south.
Remember Iraq won the Asia cup in 2007 so they would be the best hot weather team, though they also have a history of being bought off by other middle east teams in world cup qualifying. If you remember somehow Iraq beat China and caused Australia problems yet lost twice to Qatar in the same qualifying group. Concacaf all teams there have hot areas, the south of the US, coastal parts of Mexico and Central american teams. African teams are even better placed though they have too many Europeans and not sure whether they utilised a camp in their native countries.
I would have liked to see Australia playing all there games in the North and using Darwin as a training base. Then using McKay,Zadkovich and Murdocca who can run any number of miles in extreme heat. EVen if your only play one game in the north it can drain players remarkbly, so Australia didn;t have that benefit either with no game in the north in the group.

I thought Japan were the better team against Greece and Korea were the better team against Russia.

In terms of Proactive play, we've done quite well.

Iran have set up to play defensive football, which is disappointing.

Only marginally, thought it was quite even.

Watching the replay of Sth Korea/Algeria now, and the Algerians absolutely destroyed the Koreans. Embarrassing.

I said "aside from Costa Rica and the US". I think plenty of minnows have troubled the big sides, but it's hardly been a WC full of giant slaying as some would like to make out.

Upsets happen all the time. Whether Chile beating Spain can be considered an upset is debatable in itself.

The only time AFC teams have done anything is in 2002. And that's because FIFA paid the refs for Korea to get into the knockout stages.
Once the money dried up they got smashed in the semi and 3rd place playoff.

The other way of looking at Japan and Korea, is that many elements to their game are better than the mid ranking Euro nations.

In the future , we are going to have a tough opposition from Japan, Korea and China to qualify for anything. At the same time we're making up ground on Europe. If we qualify for tournaments, we should be more competitive when we get there.




Edited by Decentric: 23/6/2014 05:30:09 PM

Chile beating the back to back European Champion and current World Champion not an upset...

South America are the big winners but North America (3 out of 4 with a strong chance to progress) and Africa (3 out of 5 with a strong chance) have been punching above their weight.

Way too much goalpost moving to keep up with in thread.

Realistically, who expected any of the AFC teams to go out there and be world beaters?

Japan in a group with Ivory Coast and Colombia, they were long odds to qualify.
Iran in a group with Argentina, Nigeria and B&H, they were never really considered a chance to qualify. They at least put up a fight against Argentina and have the easiest game in their group to come still and could sneak through.
South Korea are the weakest they've been in a long time and were never expected to get past Belgium and Russia. Capitulation against Algeria was just salt in the wounds.

And Australia...welp, fuck.

No goalposts have been moved - 9 games, 0 wins, 3 points

I'd call it an upset. Would call Netherlands smashing them 5-1 an upset too, but agree neither Chile nor Netherlands would be considered minnows

The scoreline might be considered a bit of a shock, but this was a WC Final rematch. Netherlands should have probably beaten Spain in 2010 on the balance of play. The Dutch beating Spain shouldn't be considered an upset...

The reason I'd argue that the Chile game might not be considered an upset is because there were already question marks over Spain before the tournament started. Plenty were wondering how motivated the players would be after winning absolutely everything. There were also question marks over their fitness after a lot of football without much rest - Euros, Confeds Cup, Barca and Madrid going deep into all of their competitions etc.

Spain might be defending World and Euro Champions but many people questioned if this was one tournament too far for some of the squad. After the 5-1 crushing at the hands of the Netherlands the 2-0 loss to a highly-rated Chile isn't much of an upset.

You're happy to move the goalposts to show yourself as a scoreboard analyst, so I'll let you speak for yourself.

The Socceroos' performance speaks for itself too, and the whole world knows it.

This thread is about the Asian Football Confed in general, I'm not saying Aus didn't play well we did (besides against Spain) we showed the world we are not push overs. But over all this has been pretty disappointing (at this point in the competition) for the AFC.

I personally though Japan and South Korea had strong enough squads to make it to the final 16, and as previously mentioned by others 9 games in to the world cup and the entire confederation at the same amount of pt NZ managed to get last world cup.

Personally i think that we have under performed as a confederation. As for performances and on the park entertainment yea it is been average-to-good but in reality the end results haven't been there...

I havent said anything about their 'performance'. They performed admirably in their opening two games. Full credit to them.

Not sure what that has to do with the fact that AFC sides are yet to record a win. It's a poor performance (when I talk about performance, I'm referring to results... you know, that thing that actually matters at this level) by the confederation whichever way you look at it. Points arent awarded for effort and putting up a good fight. They're awarded for outscoring the opposition. None of the sides have been capable of doing it so far.

I'm not sure who is shifting goalposts here or if you even understand the meaning of the term.

+1

Is it really underperforming? If you look at the form coming into the WC of the Asian teams it's not really a huge surprise, apart from Japan, the other 3 come into the tournament on the back of really bad runs, and as afro mentioned, have unluckily been drawn in some really tricky groups.

Iran: 1 win in their last 5, a 2-0 win against Trinidad and Tobago. This includes draws against Angola, Belarus and Guinea.

Japan: Won their last 4 games coming into the tournament, although it has to be said the only decent opposition they faced was Costa Rica. The other wins came against New Zealand, Cyprus and Zambia.

South Korea: Won just 2 of their last 7, against Costa Rica and Greece, but lost to Russia, USA, Tunisia, Mexico and Ghana scoring just 1 goal and conceding 13. Also have to remember they barely scraped through to Brazil in an automatic place, so their struggles aren't that new.

Australia: Won just 2 and lost of their last 7 games, which include the twin 6-0 losses to Brazil and France.

AFC should have performed a bit better with the conditions (humid and tropical)

But South Korea and Japan are both in more temperate regions in Asia, and going to Brazil with its conditions is a bit alien for a lot of Australians.

In terms of acclimatising to foreign conditions: Im expecting teams like Germany, The Netherlands, and if a team like Denmark qualifies for Russia, to do well in the Russian World Cup, but expect the South American nations to be frozen out :lol:

Can anyone back up the fact the World cup being held in Brazil has benefited the South American/ Iberian American nations? Even honduras and ecuador have been competitive, and theyre usually rubbish token teams at World Cups

Edited by condemned666: 24/6/2014 07:34:17 PM

Yep, give more spots to the AFC.

Ecuador are hardly usually a rubbish token team at the world cup, and Honduras have been competitive for one game, they got absolutely obliterated in the other one.

If you had asked me before the draw "Would an AFC nation get out of their group?" I would have given a very confident yes that Japan or Korea or both would make it out.

So for me we as a confed have under preformed.

CONCACAF have showed they deserve their spots and are growing as a confed despite what people on here think.

Edited by TimmyJ: 25/6/2014 12:26:56 AM

FFS just settle say 50% of the World Cup spots by inter-confederational playoffs instead of the token few now, and let the places be filled by sporting merit and not geopolitical exco back scratching.

I never had much expectation for Iran or Australia to get out of the group this time. South Korea's been shiet - about as bad as us in qualification but unlike us they didn't try to rebuild their team - so even lower expectation for them.

But very disappointed about Japan indeed, especially with their relatively easier group. :?

Another brilliant display of structured possession from Japan.

2 games left for AFC sides to get a win.

The most disappointing thing about Japan and SK is that they were lucky enough to be drawn in the 2 weakest groups.

Asian teams have failed because of the location of their base camps apart from Australia.
Japan only dominated against Greece because Greece had 10 men. Greece has one of the furtherst north base camps and went through.
Croatia beat an African nation in the tropics. They fell to Mexico but then Mexico could have had an extensive preperation in the heat of coastal Mexico.
Australia's advantage was nullified by playing in stadium in the South against Spain plus Spain had used fresh reserve players,
whereas Australia's fresh players were rubbish.
Playing the Netherlands in the southern most stadium didn;t do us any favours.
I would have like to play SPain further north then the heat would have caused them to slack off being a dead rubber.

Agree with nearly all of this post, Nickk.

Sometimes pundits a don't take preparation and playing in hot conditions as decisive factors in match outcomes as much as they should.

The exception to agreeing with all of the post is I thought Japan were actually dominating structured possession before the send off.

Sadly, I think you enjoy a perverse form of sadistic pleasure from Asian teams not winning games, Sydney Croatia. I hope I'm wrong though.

I'd define performance as the quality and amount of Proactive play when two teams compete. FIFA's Technical Committee has determined that Proactive play is usually paramount in terms of results, over Reactive play.

Unfortunately, Australia lost its last game, because Spain outclassed us in Proactive play.

Sage post.

I suppose this post puts it into perspective.

I thought Korea had had a better run than that? Although friendlies are a time for experimentation.

As I'd stated earlier in the thread, both the AFC and UEFA sides have performed poorly where it matters - on the scoreboard. That's really the only 'performance' that means anything.

I didnt single the AFC out, the thread is about the AFC. Fact is that they've been the worst confederation at the Cup as they have not been able to win a game. They've got 2 more games so that might change.

Good.

I just get sick of AFC bashing.

I think the Asian federation has progressed, but Iran have probably been disappointing in terms of setting up a game plan hoping to capitalise on opponents' mistakes.

Reactive game plans rarely extrapolate to success, apart from Greece winning the European championship.

Whether you like it or not, the AFC bashing is usually justified.

Yet to win a game in this WC. Last time around Japan got through, the other sides dropped out with 1 win between them. North Korea managed to concede 12 goals while Bahrain couldnt get past NZ in the playoff. Only 1 win in 2006

According to results they've actually gone backwards - 2 teams qualified in 2002, 0 in 2006 (1 if you want to count Australia, but technically Australia were still in Oceania), 1 in 2010, 0 in 2014.

Japan were amazing to watch in the Confed Cup. But lost to some individual mistakes. So Zaccaroni decide to sit back and play counter-attack in the World Cup. He needs to go.

Speaking of the confed cup, who really cares about it?

Should it go the way of the dodo/ the goodwill games?

North Korea 2010?

South Korea made the round of 16 last time too.

As I said, the brazilian conditions (tropical) are not suited to Korea and Japan, both those countries have more temperate climates in Asia, contrary to the stereotype: Asia is not completely a stinking, humid hell hole.

Of the countries on the equator I dont think any of them would have gone well on the basis of skill as opposed to acclimatising to home-like conditions, :-k hmm.. Vietnam? Malaysia? er... Indonesia? Philipines? Which equatorial Asian nation is the strongest?

Edited by condemned666: 25/6/2014 09:08:32 PM

if spain italy england and some other european team were the sole representitives of europe we would be talking about how hopeless europe has been

its hard to read into the results so far at the world cup because they don't seem to provide a coherent picture of whether a change of philosophy is happening

Japan and south korea have both technically caught up to some of the elite in europe apart from finishing (which is a very important part of the game)
however, they struggled against physical opponents

perhaps if there is a change in football it is this. It has no longer the fact that technique only matters. Tiki taka was designed so that a physically inferior side could be defeated 99 times out of 100 by a technical side. This suited spain and ultimately asia. Every country eventually adapted. The technical gap closed enough that the physical side of the game mattered again. Now perhaps sides that are good physically and techically are the sides that will do well

Then again spain might regenerate and blow the world apart again and SK and Japan might have had an off world cup and come back with avengence next world cup.

Results have been so unpredictable this world cup and there have been so many upsets that it is hard to read anything big picture into it at all

Would love to know what constitutes an 'on' World Cup for Japan and South Korea. Only once have either of them made it past the Round of 16 and that turned out to be one of the most undeserving semi final places in World Cup history. Neither South Korea or Japan have ever even threatened to do anything great at a WC outside of 2002, which as I said has a massive * next to it.

both making the round of 16 last world cup was pretty good i think.
Any improvement from that is an on world cup

"Brilliant display of structured possession" that got them wiped off the park.

If a stronger Asian team had been drawn in Iran's place or even into Group E, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Hell, Australia or Japan would have stood a reasonable chance of getting out of Group H.

So the brilliant structured possession of Japan and SK has twice failed to break down 10-man opposition. SK even managed to concede.

So both Asia and Europe finish the group stages on a low. AFC sides finishing without a win while yet another European side got sent packing.

Croatia
Spain
Italy
England
BiH
Portugal
Russia

They're all sides who would have fancied their chances of progressing, yet all choked spectacularly.

Asia goes out with 3 points, 0 wins, 9 scored, 25 conceded. All sides finished on the bottom of their group.

Interesting that 4 out of the top 10 (FIFA ranked) failed to qualify for group stages.

-PB

Obviously an underwhelming showing by the FIFA top 10.

I don't think there's anyone who you'd say 'didn't deserve' to make it out of their group except perhaps Costa Rica.

Not wanting to sound like a Euro snob the last 2 world cups both finalist where from Europe....

prior to that Brazil won against Germany...

Taking the focus back to the actual point of this post - AFC didn't win again game this world cup in 12 matches we collect 3 points for a whole confederation NZ alone showed more balls then us in 2010, in my opinion thats unacceptable.

Anyone who thinks the AFC deserves more WC after this world cup need to be shown the facts, we didn't perform and it is a simple fact.

Edited by Davstar: 27/6/2014 04:46:01 PM

SK beat Portugal, Poland, Italy, Spain and lost 1-0 to Germany.

All of these nations have a strong World Cup pedigree.

So you if you're going to talk about results, then talk result, none of this "undeserving" nonsense.

Well said. We all know that Japan can do better.