It's probably just an irrational response to the political clout that the West Asian (Middle Eastern) countries have in the AFC, but I've so far really enjoyed watching East Asian teams being successful (most of the time) over our West Asian rivals.

Matches so far that involve East vs West:

Aust 4 - Kuwait 1 (1-0 East)
Sth Korea 1 - Oman 0 (2-0 East)
Uzbekistan 1 - Nth Korea 0 (2-1 East)
China 1 - Saudi Arabia 0 (3-1 East)
Japan 4 - Palestine 0 (4-1 East)

So apart from North Korea losing, so far all East Asian teams have won their matches. Now East Asia had less teams qualify, so Group C is solely West Asian and thus the finals will still have many West Asian teams, but I personally am enjoying this.

What's the point - probably none. The non-qualifying East Asian teams still have a long way to go to surpassing the lower ranked WAs who qualified, but it's nice to see EA teams dominating. I hope it will continue throughout the tournament, even just for my irrational political biases (although based on the matches below, I expect WA to probably get another 2 wins against Nth Korea and China)

6 remaining East vs West group matches:

Kuwait vs South Korea
Aus vs Oman
Nth Korea vs Saudi Arabia
China vs Uzbekistan
Japan vs Iraq
Japan vs Jordan

Edited by kamaryn: 12/1/2015 10:04:28 PM