Sunday, July 29, 2007

Iraq 1-0 Saudi Arabia FT

Finally! Iraq has won the Asian Cup 2007! Will elaborate on this later!

Iraq vs Saudi Arabia HT

It is half time now. We expected fair play in this penultimate match of Asian Cup 2007. However, at 37th minute, an incident happened. This incident involved Iraq's number 10 and captain and star striker Younis Mahmoud and Saudi Arabia's 19. The Saudi player got his face quite close to Younis Mahmoud's face and the Iraqi captain made use of the situation by acting as if his face was shot by a shot gun from a point blank range.

Fortunately, Mark Shield, the Australian referee got this one right. He knew Younis Mahmoud was acting, but he reckoned that there was a contact between the two players. So, he took a diplomatic stance by giving both players a yellow card each.

The second half is resuming soon. The second half can only get better!

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Lucky South Koreans

South Korea have just clinched the third place in the Asian Cup 2007 despite being down to 10 men and being on the backfoot most of the time. In addition, South Korea also escaped 3 certain goals with a huge stroke of luck.

As a football fan, I am not very happy with the defeat of Japan. The reason is simply because throughout this tournament, South Korea have not been playing in accordance to Fair Play. They are very rough and they fall down by the slightest touch to win free kicks and even penalties.

Too bad USA prevented North Korea from entering Asian Cup 2007. Otherwise, the South Koreans would be ashamed with themselves especially if North Korea can end the tournament in a better note than them. I am confident North Korea can play in a fair play manner. I have witnessed this last year in the AFC Youth Championship in India where North Korea U-19 team clinched the title in a scintillating fashion and with fair play manner.

Tomorrow will be the match to determine the winner of Asian Cup 2007 between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Let's hope there will be fair play throughout the game and let us all forget about the third place game. South Korea have been sending a very wrong message to the world. The message from them is simply, "Cheat and you will win the game".

This is wrong. Please play fairly. This message is directed to all aspiring footballers out there.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Asian Cup 2007

Asia’s premier football competition, the Asian Cup will be starting very soon. 16 top Asian national football teams will be rubbing against each other’s shoulders to compete for the much coveted trophy and to be officially recognized as the strongest team in Asia. This year’s edition of the quadrennial competition will be quite different from the previous editions due to several factors. First and foremost, this will be the very first time that the competition is hosted by four different countries at the same time. The four host countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. This is so basically because these countries do not have adequate number of large stadiums. However, they do have world class stadiums. Malaysia has Shah Alam Stadium and Bukit Jalil Stadium with the capacities of 69372 and 87000 respectively. In Thailand, there is the 65000 capacity Rajmangala Stadium. In Vietnam, My Dinh stadium with 40000 capacity is also a competent in the international stage. Lastly, Indonesia has the 100000 all-seated Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. This world class stadium will be the stadium in which the final of the competition will be played.

Another key difference to this year’s tournament will be the inclusion of Australia, who has just joined the AFC (Asian football federation) recently. We have seen how competent and star-studded the Australian national football team is from last year’s World Cup and we can be sure that they will provide much entertainment for the fans as well as giving the powerhouse nations of Asia a run for their money in this competition, therefore adding depth to the competition.

16 teams are going to compete for the trophy. They are divided into 4 groups in which there are 4 teams in each group. They are all drawn into the groups in such a way that the host nations will not be in the same group and in each group, there will be a balanced number of strong teams and weak teams. Besides to prevent the host countries from playing each other in the same group, the seeding system is also in place to prevent the strong teams from playing each other in the early stage of the competition.

All matches in group A will be played in Thailand, all matches in group B will be played in Vietnam, all matches in group C will be played in Malaysia, and last but not least, all matches in group D will be played in Indonesia. Two teams from each group will advance to the quarter finals. Now, we are going to look into each of the 4 groups and analyze the chances of each team in the group to progress to the quarter finals.

Group A consists of co-hosts Thailand, Australia, Oman, and Iraq.
In this group, I would expect Australia and Iraq to progress. Both of these teams, especially Australia are simply in a different league from Oman and Thailand. For Thailand, even though they are arguably the strongest team in South East Asia and the fact that they will be playing in the home soil, they are just not strong enough in a stage beyond South East Asia. For Oman, they are quite weak for a West Asian side, and playing far from home does not really help. Either Oman or the co-hosts Thailand will be the whipping boys in this group.

Group B consists of co-hosts Vietnam, Japan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
In this group, I expect Japan to top this group, without doubt. Either Qatar or the Emirians will join Japan in the quarter finals. The race will be for the second spot between Qatar and the UAE. For Vietnam, I am so sorry, they will just be a “Point Collection Center” for the other three nations.

Group C consists of co-hosts Malaysia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and China.
I would bill this group as the Group of Death of this tournament. Again, it will be very cruel to the co-hosts as Malaysia will surely be the whipping boys here. China, Uzbekistan, and Iran are the most powerful teams in Asia and it is as good as saying that Malaysia is in this group just to make up the number. This will be very tight, so tight that the difference in points among these three teams will be very little or even goal difference will be the decisive factor in determining which of these three will finish first, second, or be eliminated in finishing third in the group.

Group D consists of co-hosts Indonesia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.
Well, Indonesia, the best team in the world is here! Indonesia will be the Champion! Haha, just kidding. Seriously, it will be clear cut in this group. South Korea and Saudi Arabia will progress while at the current state, Indonesia will be the whipping boys. I am not trying to be bias, but I think Indonesia might have the chance to salvage some points by drawing against either Saudi Arabia or South Korea and perhaps beating Bahrain. Hopefully, they may even progress if lady luck is smiling on Indonesia at that time!

So, I would expect these 8 teams to be in the quarter finals. Australia, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. For the overall champion, it will be one of these: Australia, Japan, and South Korea. My heart keeps telling me that this will be Australia’s year. We shall see next month.

Lastly, all my predictions here are based on the strength of the participating teams on paper. We all know that anything can happen in football. Perhaps, all four co-hosts will be tugging it out in the semi finals! Nobody knows. Only God knows what might happen in the Asian Cup. Also, we shall keep our fingers’ crossed that there will be swashbuckling and entertaining football being played and the games will be played in the fair-play manner. Onwards, Asian football!