2010 Football World Cup Qualification

[BigPete33]

Greetings football fans!

Use this thread to discuss all the Socceroos matches as they try and earn qualification to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The rundown...

Australia are now in the Asian zone (previously in Oceania) which means we finally (hooray!) get a realistic qualification process against teams of a higher standard and it doesn't all boil down to praying for a win against a single team from South America.

Here's a link for the qualification process in the Asia Zone....

As you can see, Australia are seeded number one (woohoo!) which means we earned ourselves a trip straight to round 3 of the qualifiers. It's a group stage (there are 5 different groups) with 4 teams in each group who all play each other twice - once at home and once away. The standard leaderboard scoring of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for being a loser applies.

The group we are in (Group 1) consists of Australia, China, Iraq and Qatar.

You can track our progress here

So far we have played Qatar (at home) and China (away) and recorded a win against Qatar and a draw against China. Keeping in mind that the top 2 from each group in round 3 progress to the next stage - we're looking ok.

Our next match is against Iraq (at home) on the 1st of June.


COME ON YOU AUSSIES!

[AceLosesKing]

YAY FOR AUSTRALIA!!

I like our new qualification process. Saying that... beating Uruguay in the penalty shootout was gold.

[Des]

sock her?

[bennymacca]

need to beat iraq to make sure we qualify

but i like being part of the asian confederation - if we win our way through, then no-one can say we got lucky, like we did against uruguay

having said that, when johnny slotted that penalty home, i dont think i have ever screamed at the TV so hard!

pity its not on free-to-air, bloody foxtel

[BigPete33]

I think all my neighbours are deaf, because I often yell at the tv that loud

They can't hear you if you don't shout right?

[BigPete33]

Qatar beat Iraq !

That's done us quite the favour because now it looks as though Iraq and China will be fighting it out for the 2nd placing in our group.

If we beat Iraq it's practically in the bag!

[SlickNick]

think we will all have to keep fingers crossed australia has a habbit of tripping over them selves..

[BigPete33]

Australia takes on Iraq tonight @ Suncop Stadium, could be a very interesting match as we are fielding a below strength side.

Iraq seem to have only brought over one striker so it's odds on that they'll look to play on the counter attack and possibly even play for a draw.

Our coach has already put the ref's on notice that he doesn't want to have to tolerate any negative, time wasting tactics which apparantly the Iraqi's are infamous for. It will be interesting to see how the referee handles the match.

Harry Kewell is captaining the side tonight which means he's starting and it looks as though he'll play in the hole between midfield and attack as a 2nd striker that has freedom to roam. Let's hope he turns it on like we all know he can!

Scott McDonald is our main striker tonight and Mark Schwarzer retains his place in goal. I'm tipping a win to Australia with the score 2-0. My tip for man of the match would be Brett Emerton because I think he has all the necessary skills and workrate to really make mincemeat out of the opposition we face tonight. I'm pencilling him in for an assist and I think McDonald will score his first goal for Australia.

Should we win this match then I think it will be quite hard for us to not make it to the next stage of qualifying.

[AceLosesKing]

Aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi.

Let me guess, the match is only on Fox, yeah?

[BigPete33]

I haven't checked but I know it's on Fox Sports 3. It's probably the only broadcast (they did kind of pay for the priveledge though!).

**edit** There's a live blog on fox sports website here