Sports Desk :
Hosts Australia seek their first title in the Asian Cup Football Championship beginning from January 9 in the country’s five cities namely Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and New Castle. Sixteen nations divided into four groups of four will vie for the continental soccer’s highest prize to be awarded on January 31 after the final match. Group A: Australia, Kuwait, Oman and South Korea.Group B: China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.Group C: Bahrain, Iran, Qatar and UAE.Group D: Iraq, Japan, Jordan and Palestine.The fixture of the tournament has been prepared in such a way as Iran and Japan, the number 1 and 2 seeds, will not meet each other until in the final if they finish atop in their respective groups. But their quarterfinal clash even cannot be ruled out if one of them become group champions and the other runners-up.In fact, the strength of the teams in the final round is almost equal and it is, as such, very difficult to make any prediction about the outcome of the tournament results.Iran and South Korea took part highest 12 times in the final round followed by China on 10 occasions. But Japan won highest four times. The years are 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011. Iran secured titles in 1968, 1972 and 1976 and so did Saudi Arabia in 1984, 1988 and 1996. South Korea captured the Asian titles, latest in 1960. The other time is 1956. Kuwait and Iraq swept in 1980 and 2007 respectively, and Israel, which has been playing in the European soccer since mid seventies, became Asian Champions in 1964. On the other hand, the continent’s best sports nation China have not yet won the crown in soccer. So far the regional representatives are counted, the Middle East have highest 10 followed by the East Asia with five, including Australia. Central Asia, which was once part of the erstwhile Soviet Union has one only, but the South Asia and the South East Asia has no representative this time. Considering the strength of the of the Asian nations, it is very difficult for countries in the South Asia and the South East Asia to have their representatives in the final round, summoning an amendment to the Asian Cup Qualifiers by-laws with provision that the countries of the above two regions separately will play one another on the return league basis to decide which two nations qualify from the two regions.In that case, teams like Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Thailand may have an opportunity to sail into the final round from the next competition. If necessary, the number of teams in the final round may be increased to 24 from 16. The eight football federations of the SAARC region and 10 ASEAN football federations may work out a plan to convince the Asian Football Confederation to amend the by-laws to be effective from 2020.Palestine are the debutant.
