Arab countries at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup

[Kambojaric]

We need to increase the number of teams to 24 to make it more attracting.

The quality of football would be horrendous then lol. Trust me I watched some South Asian games football matches. It was horrible to watch.

 

[al-Hasani]

@kollang

The fact that 9 out of the 16 AFC teams are Arab teams just show how strong Arab football is. They qualified to the tournament fair and square.

The best Arab teams nowadays are found in North Africa and they do for obvious reasons not participate in the AFC.

Nobody expects Kuwait or Oman to advance in a group where two of the 3 favorites (Australia and South Korea) are found. One of them the home team (Australia) that was in the final in the last tournament in 2011.

There are no better teams in Asia with only 5 million people like is the case with both Kuwait and Oman.

KSA is in their worst period in recent history despite being the second most successful team in AFC history after Japan and the team with most final appearances (6). KSA can still quality but they just got a new manager that has only worked with the team for less than 1 month and KSA lost Asia's best player last year (Al-Shamrani) due to injury and other important injured players. Even if KSA qualifies the opponent will be either South Korea or Australia. 2 of the 3 favorites.

Is tiny Bahrain with 1.5 million people supposed to defeat 80 million big Iran?

UAE and Qatar are strong teams and Iran will probably not have an easy time against them.

How is 5 million big war-torn Palestine (their first AFC tournament) going to defeat the favorites and most successful team in AFC history, 125 million big Japan?

3 Arab teams in the quarterfinals (almost half - just like before the tournament) would be a good achievement.

Lastly there are about 60 Arab users on PDF despite there being over 450 million Arabs out there and only about 10 of us are even active. So of course people will not be active here. Many left this forum too.

I made this thread for us few Arab users here to discuss the AFC from an Arab perspective. That's all.

We will support Arab teams whether they perform good or bad.

 

[kollang]

@kollang

The fact that 9 out of the 16 AFC teams are Arab teams just show how strong Arab football is. They qualified to the tournament fair and square.

The best Arab teams nowadays are found in North Africa and they do for obvious reasons not participate in the AFC.

Nobody expects Kuwait or Oman to advance in a group where two of the 3 favorites (Australia and South Korea) are found. One of them the home team (Australia) that was in the final in the last tournament in 2011.

There are no better teams in Asia with only 5 million people like is the case with both Kuwait and Oman.

KSA is in their worst period in recent history despite being the second most successful team in AFC history after Japan and the team with most final appearances (6). KSA can still quality but they just got a new manager that has only worked with the team for less than 1 month and KSA lost Asia's best player last year (Al-Shamrani) due to injury and other important injured players. Even if KSA qualifies the opponent will be either South Korea or Australia. 2 of the 3 favorites.

Is tiny Bahrain with 1.5 million people supposed to defeat 80 million big Iran?

UAE and Qatar are strong teams and Iran will probably not have an easy time against them.

How is 5 million big war-torn Palestine (their first AFC tournament) going to defeat the favorites and most successful team in AFC history, 125 million big Japan?

3 Arab teams in the quarterfinals (almost half - just like before the tournament) would be a good achievement.

Lastly there are about 60 Arab users on PDF despite there being over 450 million Arabs out there and only about 10 of us are even active. So of course people will not be active here. Many left this forum too.

I made this thread for us few Arab users here to discuss the AFC from an Arab perspective. That's all.

We will support Arab teams whether they perform good or bad.

Population is irrelevant here.Netherlands with 17 millions people can beat the whole Asia with 3/5 billions people.

Anyway this is a football thread where people gather to chill.lets chill out.

 

[ResurgentIran]

Population is irrelevant here.Netherlands with 17 millions people can beat the whole Asia with 3/5 billions people.

Anyway this is a football thread where people gather to chill.lets chill out.

Especially in the case of Qatar and Bahrain population size does not matter, because they naturalize players from Africa and South America.

 

[al-Hasani]

Especially in the case of Qatar and Bahrain population size does not matter, because they naturalize players from Africa and South America.

Of course population matters when it comes to small countries (population wise) like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The comparison with Netherlands makes no sense as 90% of all European teams are better than all Asian teams.

4 players on the Bahraini team are not natives but they all have lived in Bahrain for years (some half of their life's or since they were small children) and with the exception of one (Okwunwanne) they are all fellow Arabs. Not much different from countless of European teams such as France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy etc. that use players that were not born in those countries. Let alone players that are not "natives" in terms of ancestry. In such a case most European top teams have serious problems.

In the case of Qatar (which is the exception here) 7 players out of 23 players are non-natives and all of them are fellow Arabs with the exception of 3 players which are from Senegal (goalkeeper), Ghana and Congo respectively. But all of them have played football and lived in Qatar for years. Some since childhood.

Those two countries are exceptions and it is only understandable given the fact that the populations are so small.

They have done nothing illegal either.

I for once would have no problem if "non-natives" that were born in KSA or had lived their entire life's (more or less) were eligible to play for KSA. For that to happen the naturalization policies would have to be much less stricter which will not happen in my life time IMO.

 

[ResurgentIran]

Of course population matters when it comes to small countries (population wise) like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The comparison with Netherlands makes no sense as 90% of all European teams are better than all Asian teams.

4 players on the Bahraini team are not natives but they all have lived in Bahrain for years (some half of their life's or since they were small children) and with the exception of one (Okwunwanne) they are all fellow Arabs. Not much different from countless of European teams such as France, Germany, Spain, England, Italy etc. that use players that were not born in those countries. Let alone players that are not "natives" in terms of ancestry. In such a case most European top teams have serious problems.

In the case of Qatar (which is the exception here) 7 players out of 23 players are non-natives and all of them are fellow Arabs with the exception of 3 players which are from Senegal (goalkeeper), Ghana and Congo respectively. But all of them have played football and lived in Qatar for years. Some since childhood.

Those two countries are exceptions and it is only understandable given the fact that the populations are so small.

They have done nothing illegal either.

I for once would have no problem if "non-natives" that were born in KSA or had lived their entire life's (more or less) were eligible to play for KSA. For that to happen the naturalization policies would have to be much less stricter which will not happen in my life time IMO.

I know its not illegal or anything and I know the players have become citizens, but when I look at Qatar I dont see their national team as a genuine Qatari national team.
It would be one thing if any of the players had roots (paternal/maternal) to the country. But when you have a guy like Sebastian Soria from Uruguay who has no roots to Arab world, then its kinda, you know...
And I only mentioned it it up since you brought up population size. Population size is not so relevant when it comes to Qatar because they have naturalized many players over the years that are not from Qatar and has no root to it (Arab or not).
Besides, population size is not as important as you think. Look at China with its 1,3 billion people, yet have never achieved anything in Asian football.

 

[al-Hasani]

Disagree.

Some nice goals after great team play displaying high technical quality.

Another missed penalty.

The scandalous result against China (totally undeserved and ridiculous) will bite the team in the *** as it looks like Uzbekistan will defeat China. If that happens KSA would have to win over Uzbekistan and they are not a bad team. No matter that they have historically shown nothing in the AFC in terms of success.

If Shamrani (Asia's player of the year - 2014) was playing in this tournament and had Al-Bassas not been injured KSA might have had a chance of doing something in this tournament. Potentially even reaching the 7 final in AFC history.

Now I am pretty sure that the game against Uzbekistan will be the final game.

China-Uzbekistan 1-1! Come on China! 2-1 now! Long live the ancient Arab-Sino ties!

Now a draw against Uzbekistan is enough. Not advancing now would be a failure. Sadly the runner-up in Group B (KSA's group) will have to play the winner of Group A which will either be Australia or South Korea. Australia is the favorite after Japan according to the bookmakers and I believe that they will get the 1 place in Group A. Very difficult. Can't see China not winning or drawing against a North Korean side that have nothing to play for other than their honor.

On the other hand KSA and Australia played against each other back in September (in London) and Australia only won the game with a 1 goal difference and KSA could easily have draw or even won with some luck so I won't rule anything out. First Uzbekistan though.

We should make a thread dealing with Arab countries at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations as well guys!

 

[ResurgentIran]

Feels good to have stick it to Qatar one more time, after their disgraceful display in their last match of WCQ.
Iran secured a place in the quarterfinal, with one group match remaning.
Last match against UAE is meaningless

Btw what a magical world class touch by Sardar Azmoun. This kid is such a HUGE prospect.

 

[al-Hasani]

@Al Bhatti

UAE seems to be playing really well and can top the group with a win or draw. How are the expectations in UAE regarding the team?


It seems that 3 of the final 8 teams will be Arab. Not that bad considering that 5 of the Arab teams are competing with the 3 absolute favorites in Japan, Australia (hosts) and South Korea for 4 places in the quarter-finals.

Having said that then I still expect a repeat of the 2011 final.

 

[Syrian Lion]

Bravo Iran!! best of luck to Iran and Iraq... it is sad to see Oman leave early ..

 

[al-Hasani]

@Ahmed Jo @BLACKEAGLE

Mabrook guys!

Better luck next time @Falcon29 !

@1000 @Malik Alashter @Alshawi1234

Anyone of you guys watching Japan-Iraq? Japan is leading 0-1 after the first half. I still have hopes of Iraq scoring and drawing at least. Will be difficult though.

Let us hope that UAE can deal with the Farsis in the meantime so they can have a 40 year old anniversary of not getting into a AFC final, lol.

Anyway respectable performance by Iraq. Japan is the best team by far pound for pound by in the AFC. Iraq practically secure the second spot. Palestine has nothing to play and are probably the worst team at the tournament. Second place is secured. So either UAE or Mullah's in the quarterfinals.

 

[Falcon29]

They put is against Japan? Why? It seems like we only had 10 players as well. If I knew they we're going to pitch us against Japan I woukdve joined team and hacked every japensese player.

 

[Alshawi1234]

The iraqi team has been for bad lately, i stopped bothering watching any of the matches for over two years now.

 

[Malik Alashter]

Yea, I've never watched any of the matches as I do'nt want to get high blood plressure they have been sucks.

 

[kollang]

Let us hope that UAE can deal with the Farsis in the meantime so they can have a 40 year old anniversary of not getting into a AFC final, lol.

I will re-quote this post on Monday,expect me