I am late on this one and my last blog was in October frankly after quitting the Brazil Football Centre as a coach, I have missed on the game big time, but not enough to miss the soccer beat in Asia. First I would like to say kudos to Malaysia for coming out of the doldrums to win not just the Asean Suzuki Cup, but also winning the South East Asian games gold medal in 2009. The interesting highlight in Asia however was the Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar, Japan beat Australia 1-0 in extra time and the goal by Tadanari Lee was such a sweet thing, a volley to the right of keeper Mark Schwarzer. I do not know what exactly the intention of Australia joining Asia was, it could be that every time they qualify for the World Cup play-offs from Oceania they had to fight for that spot further with a South American team or a European team (depending on the male menopause of the FIFA members who change that to their liking).
When Australia gained admittance to Asia it was like qualifying for the World Cup every time for there are now 4 spots from Asia and chances of Australia qualifying every time are high, but winning the Asian Cup (pardon the pun) is a whole new ball game and the Aussies are finding out that this is not a birthright after all.
Despite Australia dominating the match, their style of play was so predictable with their long balls. To be fair they did not do this every time, they pumped in the balls from the flanks, when they were in Japan's half, Craig Mckay was a menace and Tim Cahill was a jack-in-the box with his dangerous aerial power. While CSKA Moscow's Honda did not have his best match, the Aussies forgot that Japan are really a team and no star player actually stood out
If they did, they mould together as a team and brought the best out of others. The Aussies were a spent force in extra time, the Japanese soaked the pressure well and were at times lucky to get away and with keeper Kawashima in such commanding role it was not going to be easy for Australia. As cliche as it may sound the best team won.
AFC however must do away with the dubious award of getting the best of the lousiest team in Asia to qualify for the Asian Cup. Sad to say we cannot say that the Asian Cup is the cream of the crop of Asia or top 16 of Asia. India qualified for the Asian Cup by winning the Asian Challenge Cup a tournament for the low ranked teams in Asia. The standard of the Indians or lack of it showed, they was no game intelligence in their play. Teams like Thailand or Malaysia can actually engineer themselves to be bottom ranked just to get into the Challenge Cup and try to win the Asian Challenge Cup to qualify or gain easy access to this grand party in Asia. Yes it sounds diabolical, but it can be done, the future is Asia, that is the tag line of AFC, yes it may well be, but not with "circus innovations" like this. Having said that the South American Championship or Copa America will have Japan in their Copa America along with Mexico, I can understand Mexico, but Japan! Well the future is Asia after all!
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