Who will NZ play-off against to go to SA2010??

Some results through from overnight.....

Bahrain          : 2
Japan            : 3

Saudi Arabia  : 1
Iran               : 1

U.A.E            : 1
North Korea  : 2

Well, firstly, the first game will be here and second away. Draw is done and that's the way it is. Not good for AWs.
As for the games from yestarday, my source says Japan was impressive (but got lazy and conceded 2 goals in last 5 minutes), should easily finish in the top 2 in that group. In the other game in that group (which also features Australia), Qatar beat Uzbekistan 3-0.
Whoever we get, it's gonna be very, very difficult to knock them out.

but they have been playing sh*te..which is why their ranking has been dropping...

Here are comparisons between FIFA rankings, and other systems which are probably more accurate.  New Caledonia is included for reference.  Aggregate includes 8 different systems including the ones I have provided.
Bones2008-09-10 12:42:37

I would think that the only teams you could write off from qualification are Bahrain and the UAE. Qatar were impressive against the Uzbeks, with a "World XI", that contains very few from Qatar. North Korea is very capable of upsetting some more fancied sides, especially at home.

In my (very) humble opinion, Japan, Australia (narrowly), Iran and the Saudi's will be automatic qualifiers. I see Qatar and South Korea playing for 5th, and the Koreans probably taking on the AW's.

Not an easy task, but not impossible either, as long as some quality opposition is found for lead up matches. I would think teams like Australia, Japan, Iran or China could provide this.

I think playing Korea would be easier than Iran or Saudi Arabia - not sure how our lads would go in that sort of atmosphere. Tehran musn't be too fun for away teams. The Korean boys are tricky, but hopefully we can defend well, kick the crap out of them and get a good result here.

Indeed. I'd prefer that Qatar got through, only to be beaten by the AW's... take that Jorge Fossati and your team of travelling Uruguayans.

Australia narrowly... we'll see. I reiterate, you better hope we don't come 5th

When is the Confeds Cup? That will be some quality opposition for the Aw's. It'd be great if NZ could play home and away friendlies against us.

North Korea would be great because they don't play their home games at home.  In their last match they only had 500 or so there (the game was played in China)

With all due respect, I watched all the Asian World Cup games and the the AW's won't even get close with the fifth placed team.

Of course the asian team is the favourite, but plenty of favourites have been knocked over.  No surprise there

Right on Bro!

I thought that game was in China because they were playing the other Korea?
I think they play all their other games at home, but I think they refuse to let the South Koreans into North Korea. My understanding of the situation anyway.

Re-live the moments of AUssie qualifying for Germany 2006.

Oh Kim Jong Il
Is full of sh*te....

Santy

Great youtube link. Hope NZ can make a similar one in 2009 or maybe like below.

IMO the best youtube made was "Reverse the Curse" if you are an Aussie and have followed football tho its highs and many many many lows this is a gut wrenching clip.

The background is a witch doctor put a curse on the Australian team after they failed to pay him. Prior to playing Uruguay some people a new witch doctor to reverse the curse. But people always talked about the curse.

Johnny Warren is Australian Footballs spiritual leader. He fought for football for years and it was he who got Frank Lowy back in football, talked FL into going into Asia, got a football crowd at the Uruguay match when at prior matches it was union / AFL / cricket people there. He did this by having anyone that played or coached or managed football given three weeks to tickets.Sadly he dided of cancer prior to our making the 2005 WC.


Sorry I have waffled on a bit ....... to the youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUIP6STNxSA

Nice video. I noticed that he forgot the defeat to NZ in the 1981 qualifying rounds. Must be a unspoken curse that one. You know a bit to hard to take blow. Anyway here's hoping both Aus and NZ reaching SA 2010.

Where are Australia in their group currently? Any chance of coming 3rd, and beating the other 3rd place team in Asia's other group?

Australia have only played one match, so it's a little hard to tell where the group will go.

OK, so that would be an away win in uzbekistan?

They've been going for a few months, it's only that the final groups have just started now.
Obviously, AFC is a much bigger confederation than OFC, so it takes them longer to complete their qualifying process as well.

Asian qualifying started in October last year which was only a month after Oceania qualifying started, they're currently up to the fourth round and Australia have already played seven games overall.

OK makes sense them being a confederation with more nations. It means they will be much better prepared and organised though, having played much better opposition on many more occasions, let alone being better players in the first place.

Yes, that's just one of the reasons why we'll be big underdogs in the playoff.

In money terms I am not sure if this is possible,��.. but nations that would help prepare you are Iraq,  China, Indonesia, Singapore,   Malaysia, ��.. all these countries want experience playing against Australian type teams (i.e. size speed read physical) and I am sure would be happy to play you in a friendly  in preparation for the Asian Cup. So could Japan who are playing us late in the qualifiers.

These matches are all potentially bigger than any match the All Blacks could play in terms of tourists to NZ and would be played aside from Iraq in similar time zones to NZ, ��.. not sure if NZ gov would put any funding behind a series of games against Asian countries, would be huge but.

Midfielder2008-10-04 23:11:32

Hopefully NZF can take advantage of the latest rankings to organise friendlies against some decent opposition in the next 10 months or so. There will be plenty of Asian teams with no competitive fixtures each Fifa window. I know that NZF is having financial difficulties, but without preparation against better qualty teams than Fiji and New Caledonia, the AWs are going to be well out of their depth.

In way of opposition, would it be wise to play friendlys against (weak)Asian teams or play against some Sth American  or African teams?.  The recently-appointed Dominique Bathenay - coach of the United Arab Emirates has said "New Zealand is by far the easyer road to the world cup, so we are focus on that". after UAE lost a pair of World Cup qualifiers at home.convict2008-10-11 04:34:46

Getting South American opposition in FIFA windows is pretty much impossible.

It'd be interesting to see if we could get a game against Senegal or Angola (both knocked out of African qualifying), but I suspect the costs for organising something like that would be pretty high, and the most realistic option would be to organise friendly games against Asian opposition.

Also the most useful to get used to their style of play and conditions, look at playing African teams after we beat the 5th placed Asian side

Japan, Iran or South Korea, see attached table, but there is a long way to go.

The top 5 asian teams play a diffrent style to the rest.

You mean like the Australians do?

Pim's just an aussie bastard.

We need to drag a couple of teams out here to play us.  Maybe mid-table Asian teams would be keen (think Malaysia in 2006) or perhaps some of the lower European teams like Estonia, Lithuania or Belarus.

On that subject, the teams available (i.e. are not playing on either match day) from Europe in the late-March window are: Finland, Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands and Norway.

Asian sides may come here, I suspect European sides would have to be played in Europe, either as NZ home games in the UK or away matches.  Nations are loath to send players to the other side of the world in mid-season unless there is a serious financial under-writing and we aren't likely to see that.