The draw has brought Asia plenty of rematches from the AFC Third Round groups. From Group A and into Group Two come Iraq and Jordan, who split their two meetings in the previous phase. From Group B and into Group One come South Korea and Lebanon, who also split their two meetings. From Group D and into Group Two come Australia and Oman, who split their two meetings from round three as well. From Group E and into Group One come Iran and Qatar, who exchanged draws in the previous group stage. The only pair split apart was Group C's Japan and Uzbekistan, which may suit Japan just fine after Uzbekistan won the group with a win and a draw against the 2011 AFC Asian Cup winners.
The teams' current ELO ratings are listed.
21 South Korea
32 Iran
54 Uzbekistan
83 Qatar
129 Lebanon
Group Two
16 Australia
25 Japan
60 Iraq
73 Jordan
76 Oman
The AFC Fourth Round runs from 3 June 2012 to 18 June 2012. Each team will play eight matches, one at home and one away to each of the other four teams in their group. The group winners and runners-up will go to the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals in Brasil. The two third-place teams advance to the AFC Fifth Round in September 2013. The fourth-place and fifth-place finishers in each group will be eliminated from the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Group Two appears to be the tougher of the two groups. The higher-ranked team out of every pot except Pot C (Uzbekistan) was drawn into this group. Group Two contains the two finalists from the 2011 AFC Asian Cup (Japan and Australia), whereas Group One contains the two losing semifinalists from that competition (South Korea and Uzbekistan). Both groups contain two losing quarterfinalists from the most recent AFC Asian Cup, with Iran and Qatar landing in Group One and Iraq and Jordan taking their place in Group Two.
After a quick scan of the draw, my predictions for the teams going to Brasil 2014 are South Korea and Uzbekistan from Group One and Australia and Japan from Group Two. The two teams predicted to advance to the AFC Fifth Round are Iran and Iraq.
Although Qatar may handle Iran decently well, I believe Iran's edge comes from their better ability to get results against group powers South Korea and Uzbekistan, especially with raucous crowds filing in the Azadi Stadium in Tehran. Lebanon managed to squeak out second place in the easiest of the Third Round groups (Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon were all the lowest seeds in their respective pots for the round three draw), but this step up in competition should prove too great. Iraq seems to have cracked the Jordan puzzle as of late, and an Oman team bereft of goalscoring (three scored in six games in the previous phase) will meet their match in this final group phase.
Group Previews:
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