Uzbekistan : The Dark Horses

Another great article from SBS’s Scott McIntrye. I am really enjoying his Asian articles, he has really opened my eyes to aspects of our new federation I have never considered.

Uzbekistan is a case in point, I can’t say I really knew anything about this team before the Asian Cup last year and they surprised me by the quality of football they played. Scott’s article was a great read and provided some fantastic information I never knew. SBS take note, you have a great resource here, you should be making more use of him before Foxtel spirit him away.

Uzbekistan could be the dark horses in the run to the 2010 World Cup. After being knocked out at the same stage of the Asian Cup as Australia (losing 2 – 1 to Saudi Arabia) they have been very competitive in friendly matches against Korea, Thailand and even knocked Iraq over.

Since the World Cup Qualifiers kicked off they have enjoyed a dream run. Destroying Chinese Taipei to qualify for the next round they then followed up with an impressive away win against Lebanon. Then recently destroyed Saudi Arabia at home to make it two out of two.

13/10/2007 Uzbekistan 9 – 0 Chinese Taipei
28/10/2008 Chinese Taipei 0 - 2 Uzbekistan

06/02/2008 Lebanon 0 – 1 Uzbekistan
26/03/2008 Uzbekistan 3 – 0 Saudi Arabia

Uzbekistan is quickly shaping up to be the banana skin for many of the top ranked teams. With Iran, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia and Australia the favourites to the make the World Cup Finals, they appear to be the team most likely in the second ranked tier to cause an upset.

I believe Australia has never faced Uzbekistan let alone traveled to Tashkent and there will be I am sure a sign of relief at FFA headquarters if we can avoid this up and coming nation in our final group (assuming we make it of course).

The Beks could fast become my second favourite team !!

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