Sports Desk :
The knock-out stage of the 17th edition of the Asian Cup Football begins on Thursday amidst record of all wins in 24 group matches that surpassed the World Cup, the European championship and the African Cup of Nations.
The participating 16 teams’ skills and techniques, art and fair play have captured the attention of soccer fans around the world and with the goals flowing in every match; the 2015 tournament has already appeared as the showpiece of the region and best so far.
The officials of the Asian Football confederation said that the game had superceded the previous mark of 18 matches without a stalemate set at the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay.
Meanwhile, hosts Australia, South Korea, China, Uzbekistan, Iran, UAE, Japan and Iraq sailed into the quarterfinals to be played on Thursday and Friday. The line-up is Australia versus China, South Korea versus Uzbekistan, Iran versus Iraq, and Japan versus UAE. There are no clear favourites as to who will cruise into the semifinals because the quality and strength of the aforesaid teams is almost equal. Just capacity to capitalize half-chance will decide the fate of the four quarterfinal matches.
At the group stage, South Korea beat Australia and Iran edged out UAE against run of play which has changed the map of the fixtures. This is the beauty of soccer. The elimination of three times Champions Saudi Arabia has not surprised the soccer experts, who predicted them as one of the favourites for the cup, for missing a penalty against the Chinese.
On the other hand, Iran’s Coach Carlos Quiroz has questioned the quality of the referees and faced penalty. He, however, succeeded in integrating the three times champions to equal Japan’s record of four titles.
But the Iranian Football Federation’s threat of punishing the footballers if they pose for photograph with female soccer fans may have adverse impact on the team’s performance against Iraq. The Iranian government does not allow female fans in male sports and vice-verse.
Contrarily, the Iraqi footballers will display football without nervousness, as no cruel man is waiting for them in Baghdad in the event of exit without cup. Hosts Australia will be under heavy pressures and will try to avoid catastrophe that began in 2007, the year of their first appearance after becoming member of the AFC in 2006.
Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Palestine have been eliminated at the group stage. Of them; Kuwait, North Korea, Qatar and Palestine failed to earn a single point, the worst performance being staged by Palestine, who conceded 11 goals in three matches and scored just one.
Finally, the AFC should introduce quota system for its five regions in order to ensure participation by team(s) from each region in the tournament’s final round.
The Central, the South and the South East Asia should have one plot each, the East Asia four and the West Asia nine. The quota system will give weaker teams like Bangladesh an opportunity to improve their quality and standard and a leap in the final round of the Asian Cup Football.
