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Australia will be playing Uruguay in the WC play offs!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Answers

A Predictable result!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Ireland - Iran currently showing on BBC2. Still 0-0 at the moment.

Just in case anybody doesn't Know but might be interested.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


Unfortunately my aerial cable does not stretch that far. I am watching updates on a screen!

Going to bed now anyway, will check result in the morning.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


Hi Gus

Probably the best opponents for Australia. I hope we can make it this time around. I could stand yet another 4 year wait.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


by "Could" I meant "Couldn't"...............of course

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


I think to make sure they have to stuff them next week and play 90 minutes of defence in the away leg.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

I think Australia will make it through. Uruguay aren't anything special (Recoba aside) and are likely to be knackered and jet lagged after playing in South America in midweek, flying to Australia to play on Tuesday and then back to South America again for the return leg shortly afterwards.

Not sure who I'll be supporting though. On the one hand it'll be good to see the profile of the game raised over here, but on the other hand I'm sick to death of hearing about how they deserve to qualify, how FIFA is conspiring against them (blatantly ludicrous given that Australia has the easiest qualifying route of just about anyone outside of the Concacaf region), how unfair it is that those nasty European clubs want the players they pay astronomical wages to actually stay and play for them, how the soccer-starved Aussie public deserves the chance to see the best in the world down here etc etc etc.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


Cannot say I entirely agree with all that you say Al, all other Confeds have at least 1 team who qualify directly except Oceania.

We do deserve to see top teams hear live, they will come if OZ can provide decent opposition, to do that they have to be more to the front and more obvious on the world stage.

Even then it is only Sydney or Melbourne who will get them, Perth? No chance, I think the most prominent team we have seen here in ages is the Brazil U16s about 5 years ago. This is despite having the best team and biggest crowd in the NSL.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


You're right to a point Gus, the other confederations do all have at least one entrant. It's worth noting though that all the other confederations are considerably more competitive than Oceania and giving Oceania a guaranteed spot is tantamount to giving Australia a guaranteed spot in the finals every year just through an accident of geography.

The way a confederation typically increases it's representation is by it's teams qualifying and performing well in the tournament Concacaf got additional spots for 2 reasons, 1 of which was that Mexico and Costa Rica managed to qualify for the knock out stages of the competition (the other was a blatant Fifa ploy to manufacture regular qualification for the US, but that's another story). Africa got extra places because Cameroon and Nigeria regaularly got through their groups. Same for Asia with Saudi Arabia.

Oceania hasn't managed this yet, and they've hardly had insurmountable obstacles placed in their way. Ask Holland if they would have settled for a play-off against the 5th placed South American nation instead of having to face Portugal and Ireland in a 10 game qualifying campaign. Or the Greeks, who despite having a decent professional league would have had to finish ahead of England or Germany just to get the opportunity to play-off against, perhaps a team like Portugal?

I'm all for the World Cup being a proper World Cup and having representatives from around the globe, but I do think there has to be some sort of competitive element to qualification.

Not sure I agree with you about deserving to see top class football here either. If all these people who supposedly love watching the game would actually go along to support the National League then they might actually be able to hang onto some of their better players for abut longer.

Got to run, it's time to go home!!!!

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001


This years World Cup is unique as there are 2 host countries and as a result one less qualification place. I do believe that Australia should have been involved in a play off but it's over half of the South American football playing nations could qualify. Australia should have had a play off with central/North America which would have been much fairer to all concerned.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001


That would have been reasonable. Unfortunately it might have interfered with FIFA's "US must qualify at all costs" policy. There's no doubt that Concacaf is over-represented at the World Cup, but I don't see a change to that any time soon.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

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