2015 Asian Cup

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Bahrain still can't defend outswinging corners.

Iran going well. 

Queiroz has done well to recruit a few players from Iranian families living overseas, often opposed to the regime.

One of them being my man Reza who is a Dutch Iranian and former Netherlands youth international.

Under contract to Charlton Athletic (my mum's team from London) but on loan in the UAE.

King of the of-side though isn't he?

Sky sport finally tweeted about the game clock 3 days into the tournament. Reckon they're looking to get it sorted ASAP and are looking into the possibility of a new feed. 

I asked if they could put their own clock up (like they have for other events and sports in the past) in the meantime, am not really expecting a response to that but will post it here if they do. 

Edit: their intention is to have a game clock for tonight. Better late than never and all that. 

I thought the lack of game clock might have been deliberate so that they could put up that stupid Samsung tablet logo every now and then. Which would be monumentally stupid but not beyond possibility. I guess not though.

Scoreboard too?

yep I believe so. 

It's a fox sports feed though - so it's beyond me why they havn't relised their mistake and fixed it.

It's definitely an international feed they have. Broadcasters are expected to add their own graphics.

Same thing happened with the World Cup. Sky got caught out during the first game (Brazil vs Croatia) and didn't have a scoreboard/game clock. However due to the larger scale of the even they noticed the issue promptly and added a scoreboard with incorrect flags which appeared at the 30 minute mark.

Given they've made this mistake before, I'm not quite sure they didn't double check if the international feed they are getting had the graphics embeddded or not.

it shouldn't take 3 days worth of several people 'campaigning' to get such a basic level of service from them. But we constantly have to, it's so frustrating. 

Sky are such a joke. Easy to get away with it with fudge all competition though.

good luck to Palestine tonight. Great effort to even be at this tournament.

Good luck to them, but my TAB balance hopes they get absolutely pummeled. I could win up to $130 if they do.

Unfortunately they will more than likely get done by 5 plus.

I hope so! $$$

predicting 8-0.  Nice basic striking shirt colours..red blue and yellow of officials...

Is Japans RB a white guy lol ??

Don't hold your breath.

Sky had a scoreboard and game clock only for the first Tall Blacks game in the World Basketball Championship.

All the other games, they failed to have any. 

It's somewhat more crucial in basketball than football since scoring is so regular and more complex  - and time is a major factor.

I'm watching a free live stream on Haha Sport.

Sky have as scoreboard and game clock up tonight?

Yeah and they had a decent half time show for once. Funny how it takes loads of complaints for them to finally get it right....again.

Palestine doing well to keep the score fairly respectable against the best team in Asia stacked with Bundesliga, Serie A, Premier League players. And with a player sent off.

Palestine team all amateurs apart from a handful of pros - Alexis Norambuena (defender from Polish top league, formerly played in Chilean top league - born in Chile) and midfielder Jaka Ihbeisheh (Slovenian top league), striker Ashraf Nu'man (Saudi Arabia) and striker Mahmoud Eid (Swedish second tier).

Palestine qualified through winning the AFC Challenge Cup for the lesser AFC countries.

Conceding only one goal so far in the second half is a good achievement for Palestine.

Consider that Japan have thrashed the All Whites in every meeting for some years. 

Good on them but Japan hasn't broken a sweat all game.

so provide some

I don't think Japan were out there to prove anything. They would probably prefer to emerge without injuries for the next raft of more demanding games, and the 4:0 score is not a reflection of their dominance.

Some good saves at the end from the Palestine keeper and captain Saleh who is a pro in the Egyptian Premier League and former league winner with Egypt's premier club Al-Ahly. 

It's amazing where Ray Wilkins turns up - now manager of Jordan.

Some interesting decisions from this ref.

Iraq could surprise in this tournament - they've included eight players from the u-20 team who were a semi-finalist at the 2013 FIFA u-20 World Cup (only beaten in the semi by Uruguay on penalties, beat South Korea in the quarter-final ,Paraguay in the round of 16). 

They've drafted in striker Justin Meram from Colombus Crew in MLS (90 MLS games for Colombus) - Iraq debut in November. US born , Iraqi parents.

Also Yasir Kasim from Swindon Town  - debut last March.

And Osama Rashid from the Netherlands u-20 team (19 Dutch u-20 caps  - the last in 2014)

Ali Adnan aged 21 from the 2013 u-20's could be a star of this tournament - AFC  Young Player of the Year 2013, star player in the Turkish league. Known as "the Asian Gareth Bale" apparently.

Palestine? They have a football team?

Iraq promising at times but final pass/options lacking.

Admitted into FIFA in 1998. Have played in all the World Cup qualifiers since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_national_fo...

Palestine played in World Cup qualifiers in the 1930's under British rule but you could say things were somewhat disrupted by the Jewish takeover of Palestine in 1948. The UN had decreed that two states should come to be when the British wanted to pull out in 1948, one for the Palestinian Arab majority (two thirds of the population in 1948) and one for the Jewish minority (only 6% of Palestine were Jews in 1900 - increased to one third by 1948 due to immigration from Europe). However, the Jewish inhabitants declared their own state in 1948 and the Palestinian one for the majority never came to be. The whole tragic situation is down to the UN and Britain doing nothing to forcibly implement a two state solution in 1948 and the matter instead being decided by the 1948 war and then the 1967 war with one side (Israel) winning militarily  - but no just or workable solution to this day. 

FIFA and the AFC acknowledged Palestine as a country in 1998 due to the fact it has actually existed since 1948 according to UN proclamation. It's just that Israel control all the territory and won't allow a Palestinian state to exist as a concrete geographical reality.

Palestine is now recognized as a "non-member state" by the UN and in effect is a"de jure" state.

"Most sovereign states are states de jure and de facto (i.e. they exist both in law and in reality). However, a state may be recognised only as a de jure state, in that it is recognised as being the legitimate government of a territory over which it has no actual control."

"Israel - A History" by leading British Jewish historian Martin Gilbert gives interesting background on all this.

Is Taiwan (aka Chinese Taipei) still part of FIFA?  If so it must also be a non-member state.

Quite ridiculous these days - it is clearly a sovereign state.

There were a couple of questionable posts last night. Let's not lower ourselves to racial stereotyping.

Me and Leggy enjoyed some banter...together.

Here's what Oceania misses out on:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/football/asian-c...

And if you open a local paper or listened to Radio National you would not know it was on.

Ball boy is a goalie as well:

http://you.video.sina.com.cn/api/sinawebApi/outpla...