Anyone been watching the Asian Cup? Some intriguing match ups of teams you wouldn’t often see.
Interesting reading and listening some of the more neutral previews before the tournament on Al Jezeera. Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea rated the teams to beat. Australia not really figuring in the analyst predictions.
Japan and South Korea underwhelming so far. Saudi’s ok, but didn’t look brilliant. Australia seem to be getting the job done under the radar, wouldn’t write us off. Iraq and Iran in particular not putting a foot wrong yet. Iraq getting the perfect 3 wins from a higher quality group too. Look like the two team to beat as far as I observe.
In the context of Asian football, who could we see in the medium term joining this upper range of teams?
Uzbekistan a really awkward opponent, quite solid. In fact have been consistently solid since joining the Asian Confederation on independence , but just never quite taken that next step.
Vietnam, although they didn’t get the results, stood out to me as having the flair and organisation that gives them the potential to work towards joining the likes of South Korea and Japan. Quite an entertaining team. Look for them to possibly come from the clouds in coming years.