Roos sweat on luck of the draw
By Tom Smithies
June 17, 2008 EIGHT of the 10 spots in the final round of Asian qualifying for South Africa 2010 have now been filled, leaving Australia, ranked first in the region in FIFA's latest rankings, facing some potentially intimidating trips depending on the draw.
As well as the Socceroos, South Korea, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, North Korea and Uzbekistan are all assured of a place, and the final two positions come down to effective shootouts.
In Australia's group, Iraq play Qatar in Dubai on Sunday with the winner advancing, although a draw would also be good enough for the Asian Champions. Elsewhere Syria must defeat UAE by three goals or more in order to leapfrog their Gulf rivals into the next round.
How the actual draw will be made remains open to question beyond separating the 10 teams into two groups of five, the only certainty being that as No.1 and No.2 seeds, Australia and South Korea won't be grouped together.
There is, as the opaque rules stand now, no apparent reward for finishing first rather than second.
Each group will feature four home and four away games per team, with the top two from each group qualifying directly for the World Cup, and the third ranked team in each group playing off first with each other, and then the winner with the top team from the Oceania qualifiers. The irony, should that be Australia facing, say New Zealand, would be limitless.
The dates for the games start on September 6 and climax with three games next June, though with 10 match dates, each team will have a bye on two of them.
The draw takes place on Friday June 27, at 7pm (EST).
