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Azmoun's penalty is saved in the 89th minute... big moment for UAE - they can still get a draw. They've been the better side honestly, it's just the quality of our forwards has made the difference so far. But hopefully we hang on for the 3 points.

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Iran v South Korea's set to be played behind closed doors at the Azadi Stadium tomorrow. The IFF, an extension of an incompetent government, failed to let FIFA know of their plans to allow fans in the stadium before the required 14 days before kickoff. Now that they've been told they can't have fans in, they're claiming it was their idea to play behind closed doors. Idiots.

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Well the full-time scores of the earlier matches were the following:

Japan 2-1 Australia

Iran 1-1 South Korea

The current ongoing matches have the following scores:

Syria 2-3 Lebanon 

Oman 3-1 Vietnam

UAE 1-0 Iraq

Saudi Arabia 1-0 China

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Japan beating Australia at home will be a huge boost to their World Cup qualifying campaign. Both Iran and South Korea will probably be content with their draw in Iran.

Lebanon who are currently beating Syria away from home by 3 goals to 2 and they will be delighted if they can hang on to the 3 points. Oman who are comfortably beating Vietnam 3-1 will also be happy with the 3 points they are likely to bag this evening. 

The UAE have a slender 1-0 lead over Iraq at half-time and they are another side who need the 3 points desperately to keep their hopes of qualifying alive. Saudi Arabia are already 2-0 up against China at half-time and it looks like they will probably score more goals in the second half given how well they played in the first half.

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  • 4 weeks later...

South Korea and Iran are on evidence the best two teams in Group A and should both take the top 2 spots. Both Iran and South Korea won again to move further up the standings. Group B however looks much more competitive, with any of Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan or Oman capable of qualifying. Japan won away to Vietnam to gain 3 extra points, Australia and Saudi Arabia drew against each other in Sydney, while Oman drew away to China. The next round of matches should be quite interesting, with a play-off spot available as well as the 2 automatic qualification spots, teams will still be fighting their hardest to get a positive result.

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6 hours ago, Khan of TF365 said:

Saudi Arabia look a good side under Renard, don't expect them to drop points to anyone except Japan. 

You say that because they have already played Australia and Oman away from home and not lost these two matches, but they are yet to play Japan away from home. The Saudis are playing some very good football, but I really don't think there is much difference in quality between the top 4 teams in Group B. Australia and Oman both had very good chances to score against the Saudis and on another day, could have won. The Saudis had dangerous chances in these games as well, but that's just my whole point, there doesn't seem to be much difference in standard between the top 4 teams. On their day, I would suggest that any of the top 4 teams could beat each other.

China seem to be the bogey team in this group, perhaps not as good as the top 4, but could still potentially nick points from them on their day. They have a wealth of experience in their side and their striker Wu Lei of Espanyol is particularly impressive at this level. So I believe they can give any side in Asia a real game on their day, even if they are not quite on the level of the top tier Asian sides. Vietnam are no pushovers, but they are evidently the weakest team in this group.

 

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@Spike @ToinhoAustralia 3rd in the group, meaning they'll likely have to knock off Saudi Arabia in the desert, or Japan, and not fuck up away to Oman. 

Seen a lot of Arnold hate, and while I don't think he's exactly a genius, or a good coach at all people are quick to forget Postecoglu only qualified after finishing 3rd in the group, not losing to Syria by the width of the post, then getting lucky with the only international pair off they were capable of winning (Honduras). 
The players just aren't there. Mostly A-League level squad, with a smattering of players capable of playing championship level or low EPL level, such as Ryan, Moy (aging) Rogic. 

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Iranian football fans are funny, some of them just really hate Skocic because he's not Queiroz. I really think some people won't like any foreigner managing the side unless it's Queiroz. But here's a typical Iran matchday for Iran football twitter since he's been the manager:

  • Skocic's lineup is announced, some people notice their favourite player isn't selected to start and they bitch about Skocic being inept.
  • Iran goes out and plays pretty well and gets a good result (he's won every match as Iran manager except against South Korea, where they drew)
  • Those same fans that were bitching praise the players and put the good performance down to players, rather than the manager.

It's obviously not all Iranian football fans, and probably not even close to most of them, it's just the Twitter idiots. The biggest legitimate complaint I think that can be raised about Skocic is: Iran were really really well organised under Queiroz & we don't look anywhere near as sturdy defensively as we did under him. I think a good counterpoint to that is... we now play a lot more attacking football and we're still getting results (granted, against Asian teams... but you can only beat what's in front of you). Considering most of Iran's best players are attackers and defensively is probably where the team is the weakest... maybe that's Skocic thinking "I'll just play to our strengths."

But I think these people are being really idiotic. It's not that long ago Wilmots was appointed and Team Melli looked totally dogshite - and honestly, I wasn't that surprised because imo he was a big failure with Belgium and I don't think really understood how to get the best from this Iran side. And him being shockingly out of depth with this squad, which is probably the most talented Iran side in my lifetime tbh (the 98 WC side runs it close though) with lots of players now at European clubs, was unacceptable. Which is why he was sacked so quickly.

And now he's been replaced with someone that: 1.) hasn't lost a single match as Iran manager, 2.) seems to be able to get Taremi and Azmoun - our two best players - to regularly deliver, and 3.) is delivering results in a way that Queiroz did... but we play football that's easier to watch.

I don't think he can really be compared to Queiroz until we've officially qualified for the WC (but that's looking very likely now) and we see how he performs (if we get 2 wins or gets us out of the groups, that's our best World Cup performance, so if the group is a fairly week one he's got a chance to write his name in the history books of Iranian football). But I think he's doing a really good job, I don't think he deserves the criticism he seems to get on Twitter.

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3 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

@Spike @ToinhoAustralia 3rd in the group, meaning they'll likely have to knock off Saudi Arabia in the desert, or Japan, and not fuck up away to Oman. 

Seen a lot of Arnold hate, and while I don't think he's exactly a genius, or a good coach at all people are quick to forget Postecoglu only qualified after finishing 3rd in the group, not losing to Syria by the width of the post, then getting lucky with the only international pair off they were capable of winning (Honduras). 
The players just aren't there. Mostly A-League level squad, with a smattering of players capable of playing championship level or low EPL level, such as Ryan, Moy (aging) Rogic. 

It’s pretty good considering it’s like the tenth most popular sport in aus. Imagine if culturally we had brazil’s autistic focus on soccer instead of every sport in the world

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
On 17/11/2021 at 06:44, Devil-Dick Willie said:

@Spike @ToinhoAustralia 3rd in the group, meaning they'll likely have to knock off Saudi Arabia in the desert, or Japan, and not fuck up away to Oman. 

Seen a lot of Arnold hate, and while I don't think he's exactly a genius, or a good coach at all people are quick to forget Postecoglu only qualified after finishing 3rd in the group, not losing to Syria by the width of the post, then getting lucky with the only international pair off they were capable of winning (Honduras). 
The players just aren't there. Mostly A-League level squad, with a smattering of players capable of playing championship level or low EPL level, such as Ryan, Moy (aging) Rogic. 

We are in serious danger of not making it. I’m not too excited about many of our players or their futures except maybe Hrustic (spelling?) who in my eyes has great potential. It’s going to be a nervy end to our qualifying campaign. I’ve never been a big Arnold fan but who else would we get! I also think the fact we could play someone from South America further scares me…
 

As for the comment by Spike about popularity, don’t let things fool us, it is there about as the most popular team sport in the country. Unfortunately there’s just so much appeal overseas and the a-league leaves quite a lot to be desired. Plus, yeah there’s a focus on so many sports unlike what it appears to be in other countries! 

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