Surely Korea or Japan in winter is just as cold as tassie, probably even colder

10 degrees might be uncomfortable but it's not going to be debilitating playing in those conditions. I mean sure playing in russia or norway below zero would be physically debilitating but tassie is about as cold as say scotland or ireland and probably not even that cold. 

Sure spread the socceroos fixtures around the country but if we can get 40,000 plus in a major australian city I'd say do that. Maybe play a team like yemen,afghanistan or pakistan there.

If it's a blockbuster game like iran or saudi arabia we want to be making money off it

Speaking of stadiums Perth now has a rectangular configuration that seats 65,000 people. That's where we need to bring more games!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Stadium

That is fucking miserable.  Don't know whether to laugh or cry

The key is that the seasons are opposite in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres throughout the year. 

A potential West Asian team will be getting on the plane when it's 45 degrees in their summer at home and getting off at minus 4 degrees in Hobart. There's your difference.

Madness that we don’t use terrain to our advantage

I don't think there's anyone that believes in Australia's involvement with Asia as much as me, but even I balk at Saudi being a marquee fixture.

Even if it was I'd feel more satisfaction by giving them a hard time with a difficult away game lol

If you're kidding yourself that Perth Stadium's "rectangular" configuration isn't a lip service joke considering they didn't even consider it worth using for the sold out A-League Grand Final then I can't convince you of anything.

It's an AFL stadium, and nothing else mattered in the design.

Christ, I'm so over the lauding over Adelaide Oval and Optus Stadium by football fans just because they are new. AFL ovals are ALWAYS shit and should be banned.

That configuration is a joke that they just threw in last minute to be able to label that stinker of a ground multi purpose without actually changing anything meaningful. It's about as useful as throwing a couple of deckchairs out on the MCG.

It's time to grow a spine and tell state governments that venues like this are unacceptable for our game, if they want their precious  "World Class Stadiums" to actually justify the title with the world events we can offer, then they need to consider actual multipurpose solutions for their major stadiums and not just think an Oval is good enough.

if we choose AFL stadiums for the first round of qualifiers, we haven't learned anything.  These games are against significantly lower ranked countries with very little commercial pull. These games should be played at AAMI Park, Bankwest and NIB type stadiums.

They would've used the extra seating if they thought they were going to get a sellout. Any decision to use these stadiums for qualifiers will be a financial decision by the FFA. 

We should play them at height in Canberra. That'll stuff em.

Bumping this up as its very close. Exciting! 

Tommorrow night. 

WHAT time and where can we watch the draw?|

Bump for MCG

thanks 

what do we know about the host venues for this round? i think Canberra has been the only one confirmed. you can take it to the bank sydney will be one, because, well its the FFA. who else is in line to host?

They knew it would sell out and chose not to use the seats with plenty of time.

Mon Perth

The "rectangular configuration" is a joke too, doesn't even come close to Etihad Stadium. All it looks to be is installing an extra few rows of seats infront of the first row - I imagine the sight-lines are quite shit. 

AFC's draw preview show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDAH9daKaA

Listened to a podcast and it's great to be reminded that we've got a number of players willing to take on the man. Ikon, Mabil, Boyle, Leckie, Borrello and even Williams if required.

Despite that I just hope Taggart and Giannou can fire and if Maclaren gets selected can get a few more goals to ease his way in. Taggart is definitely number 1 currently. 

7pm aest supposedly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxHZ-b2d44

Hope we get Vietnam, India, HK and Singapore. All possibilities look bloody tricky. Hopefully this time the other teams can take some points off each other. Last time Jordan kept winning and Tajikistan and Bangladesh were little help. 

I could live with a combination of Mabil, Rogic and Leckie up front. I think Maclaren has had more than enough chances.

Kyrgyzstan saved our arses though with a win at home and a draw away against Jordan.

If Jordan got three points off them both times then Australia would have come in second if we dropped a single point, not even including our away loss to Jordan.

The Second Round is no foregone conclusion: a couple of points dropped away in the Middle East could easily mean second place, which is only a 50-50 chance at progression.

anyways...

i want to play sri lanka preferably at aami park 

Under 2 hours now. 

Not going to look but then our 2nd place might not have been enough for the 4 remaining slots. Our wins over Bangladesh weren't included in the ranking due to Indonesia being suspended their group having only 4 teams. 

We should take that game to Tasmania or Bankwest!