Socceroos Draw A Bonus For Qualification

Big smile on my face right now !

In the end the draw was not prefect but it isn’t far from it. As the young lady from the AFC was preparing to select the teams from the final pot tonight I looked at the two groups and said a quick little prayer for Group A. And it seems for once the God of Draws smiled upon us. The two groups on paper look quite even and neither group could be said to be a group of death but for us Group A has a lot of positives.

Qatar
If you asked Pim before the draw which teams were on his want list, Qatar would have been at the top in bold. Qatar was the one team we dominated in the previous group stage. We get to play them again away at nearly the same time of year as this year and we would have learnt from the trip there this year.

Uzbekistan
The presence of Uzbekistan in our group is the only reason we can’t call this the prefect draw. The Uzbeks are a real dark horse., as they were super impressive in the previous qualifying round and unlike the other three teams we have absolutely no experience against them. But there are still positives. We play away to them on a double FIFA date where we have the first date as a bye. This will allow Pim a full 8 days with the squad (in an Europe training camp most likely) before we have to play them. This is also true of the our home match against them where again we will have a full 8 days of camp while they rush here after playing at home three days beforehand (we are talking a 30hr trip for them)

Bahrain
Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, who would you want ? This is the biggest win of the night as this was the most uneven pot. To avoid the Saudi’s is great for us with the added bonus that we have played Bahrain recently and the trip there will hold little surprises for us. To me this is the difference between us going from a good chance to qualify to being one of the favourites to qualify.

Japan
Japan is easily the most dangerous opponent in the group. But the difference between Iran and Japan is very little, so it was going to be hard whichever team we ended up with. The Feb date away to Japan will be a challenge as it is a non FIFA date and so our key players we only be released late for the match. The last match at home against them of the qualifying series has the potential to be huge if either team is playing for an automatic spot.

Here is the full match schedule

Match Day 1 : 6/09/2008 Australia Bye
Match Day 2 : 10/09/2008 Uzbekistan v Aus
Match Day 3 : 15/10/2008 Australia v Qatar
Match Day 4 : 19/11/2008 Bahrain v Australia
Match Day 5 : 11/02/2009 Japan v Australia
Match Day 6 : 28/03/2009 Australia Bye
Match Day 7 : 01/04/2009 Australia v Uzbekistan
Match Day 8 : 06/06/2009 Qatar v Australia
Match Day 9 : 10/06/2009 Australia v Bahrain
Match Day 10 : 17/06/2009 Australia v Japan

With September 6 being a bye for us I am sure the FFA and Pim are already making plans for an Eastern Europe Training camp and a friendly on this date. My early tip would be a German based camp.

Bring it on.

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