Don't know about others, but I'm enjoying watching teams from across Asia.

Compared to the HAL , there is a greater diversity of football style. The technical quality of many Asian teams/players is probably quite high high compared to the Aussies in the HAL. Conversely, for the majority they are probably not as well coached and tactically savvy.

It is good to get away from being Australiacentric.

I think we are in a region with potential for fast improvement in quality of teams/players.

If we can attain the technical quality of our opponents, and they can get closer to our tactical quality and coach education of Aussie coaches, things augur well for the future.

UAE has impressed me a lot. a real darkhourse for the competition . Ahmed Khalil, Ali Mabkhout and of course Omar Adbulrahman are all quality players.

One thing that is apparent, is that when the West Asian teams play each other, they know each other's games very well.

I'm trying to think of who UAE played?

I sometimes get confused between Qatar, UAE and Bahrain.

Yea its been good, Iran impressed me.

Would be nice if it was on tv...

Mate, I have just moved. Getting Foxtel moved was a nightmare. ](*,) They are useless, but we've just managed to reinstall it by employing private contractors.

On ABC/SBS there is very little coverage when we were relying on FTA..

Foxtel are showing every game. I'm really impressed with the panel of Aloisi and Pim Verbeek as the specialist coaches, Bozza ( with Aloisi) as the former high level player/s and Adam Peacock as a presenter. Their shows on analyses of games have been excellent.=d>

Fox is a lot more superior to SBS or ABC for coverage. Quality discussion and they also have some personality behind it. Even Zelic as a commentator although occasionally sounding out of his element is great to listen to. He seems generally excited and can give some good insight.

Back on topic, I have been enjoying it, however the Iraq Jordan game was very dull, we are really lucky the expats and tourists are propping up the crowds which have been good.

Go the Socceroos tonight :cool:

Iraq v Jordan was dull, but was fun in the stands especially with large groups of Iraqi supporters on both main stands.

I think one of the main reasons the Asian cup is becoming a more enjoyable event for me now is we know alot of these teams.

Bahrain, Japan, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Uzbekistan ect... We have faced each other in qualifying for 8 years now and knowing a bit about them makes watching the games great.

Edited by glenn - a-league mad: 13/1/2015 01:15:43 PM

Zelic is the one I don' t like at all. The only panellist on SBS, ABC and Fox I don' t like. However, he has been done to death in other threads.

I think with some of the West Asia teams, who know each other so well, in games where a loss will make it difficult to qualify for the next round, there have been some very tense games.




However, the Iran /Bahrain ( was it Bahrain?) game was a fabulous spectacle.=d>






Edited by Decentric: 13/1/2015 02:40:16 PM

I haven't watched ABC's coverage. Who do they have as their 'experts' ?

Stan Lazaridis, who is very good, Ogger and someone else who whose name escapes me.

I think the standard of play from some of the Gulf state teams, such as UAE and Oman, have improved from what it was a few years ago. Qatar, of course, is still a joke- a team full of imports and they still can't play.

Jordan-Iraq was a throwback to the bad old style of Asian football- poor finishing, awkward challenges, endless falling over and rolling around. The Saudis, too, gave a classic demonstration of poor finishing.

Japan is still the benchmark- even though they should have been able to score more than four against a poor Palestine. Hopefully they were just pacing themselves.

Yet they beat us a few months ago. They also won the Gulf Cup which is a big deal for those nations. They had some good results for a joke team last year.

On top of that they are the current Under 19 Asian Cup champions winning it last year with a strong squad made up of Euro based players.

They had Paul Okon for the first Australia game, shouldn't he be off coaching somewhere? guy is a twat and some bird who has no idea about football at all.

The fact that an international tournament isn't played on FTV live or at least play all of the matches(including non socceroos) on delay is an absolute joke no wonder FIFA didn't give us the world cup.

a clueless nutjob too

... They are still a joke.

Interesting observation that I am not sure has been raised.. Why is spider (aerial) cam only seemingly set up at Melbourne, but none of the other stadiums have it?

I can understand the limitations due to stand design at Canberra and possibly Newcastle, but Sydney and Brisbane should be possible.

It gives some great angles of play during a game.

You have 2 possible bidders for it SBS and ABC, both have been cut by funding.
At the same time FFA can not sell the FTA rights at a price that would undervalue the amount that fox sports payed.

I think we inside football overestimate its potential audience sometimes. On Tuesday I got changed at work to go straight to Brisbane for that nights game. So many people had no Idea where I was going and what was on but had heard of the Asian cup through ads. "Oh is that on tonight???" was a common answer.

Sorry Glenn, this is an example of the usual clueless shit that all-too-often gets written on this site.

It worked like this:
- Foxtel held the rights, not the FFA.
- FFA went to Foxtel and asked it to sell some of the rights so the Asian Cup could be seen on FTA. Foxtel agreed.
- However, SBS was the only FTA bidder. So the FFA asked the ABC to put in a bid. In doing so, the FFA actually topped up the ABC bid (by about half) so the ABC was the winning bidder.
- Foxtel was happy to sell some FTA content cheaply, but it was never going to relinquish (or sell) its exclusivity to matches - but it did for the semis etc.

Same experience, all my football friends are right into the cup going to all the games they can. Rest don't even know, although some sports fans i know are now going because i talked about it, so i think the advertising has been very poor.

I watched the UAE on Sunday and they were impressive play nice football ,well organised and have some players with flair to.

One thing I certainly think will happen after the final has been played out and we know our winner. All countries will have a newfound respect for one another and will look to improve their football by dramatic amounts.

Edited by highkick05: 14/1/2015 07:13:27 PM

It certainly seems that the Socceroos can play at a higher tempo than most teams.

I like the technical quality of a number of Asian teams, but they are not working as hard off the ball as Australia has to date.

That number 10 for the UAE with the frizzy, long hair is good.

I am Impressed by the improvement of alot of sides. From the last 2 Asain cups to now, teams I though were rubbish have really improved. Good to see their programs are working. Even the teams that are still low on quality seem to be more disciplined in their positioning and defensive duties.

I think the competition is going great i think crowds are better then most non-footballing people expected. There has been some good football played and over all the media has been giving it some lime-light despite cricket and tennis also running around this time of year.

Got to give the FFA cup credit if the cup keeps going like this i'd say it has been a success and we should keep pushing to host football competitions in the future.

Possibly the club world cup could come here.

When one thinks we didn't even have a pro league in Australia in 2004, the national parent body had no cash to host Socceroo games, etc, one has to pinch oneself to realise we are holding the Asian Cup in Australia within 10 years.=d>

Rather than start another thread, I thought I'd add how I'm enjoying the technical qualities of UAE, Iran and China, after not having watched them that much before the Cup. Apart from Iran, they are not they good off the ball though .


Iran are very well organised in defence. They had little of ball against UAE. Iran's defensive line and midfield has absorbed tremendous pressure, making it difficult to score against them. It will be difficult for any team to beat Iran. They nearly always maintain defensive shape.=d>

Yes, and come Thursday, China will be no pushovers. Disappointed UAE couldn't hang on. They did well. Such is life :-({|=

Australia had more chances on goal than South Korea.

Ultimately, the game comes down to converting chances. No matter how well we play, if we don't convert chances, it means nothing. We have to take them against China.

Since the first game i saw iran and UAE play i knew one of these two teams (if not both) will be in the final. more so iran than UAE. But there is something special about UAE, They will definitely cause problems for japan. Everyone is dreaming of a jordan upset. But UAE is far more likely, UAE have got the players to hurt japan. Jordan and iraqi (sad to say) are hopeless they don't play football, they are to busy chopping players down.

Iran is the ultimate cup team, solid defense. very quick counter with skill ball players and killer strikers. There is a difference between a team like Iran playing defensively and north korea. Iran can play football and did in the 2nd half tonight.