Iran on brink of booking Asian Cup spot
Reuters - Monday 04 January 2010, 07:20
SINGAPORE - Iran can book their place at
the 2011 Asian Cup finals, ease the pressure on coach Afshin
Ghotbi and give Bryan Robson's Thailand a boost with a win over
Singapore on Wednesday.
Ghotbi was ridiculed by local media in November after the
three-times Asian champions lost 1-0 to Jordan and a defeat in
Singapore in Wednesday's Group E match would further fuel the
calls for his departure.
Iran top the group on seven points from four matches, one
ahead of Singapore followed by Thailand (5) and Jordan (4) with
the top two sides from each group qualifying for the finals in
Qatar.
Ghotbi received further criticism last week when his Team
Melli finished last in a four-team invitational tournament in
Qatar, losing to the hosts and Mali but finishing with a win
over North Korea in their final match on Saturday.
"I am happy we beat the tournament champions North Korea in
our last match," Ghotbi told www.mehrnews.com.
"Although we did
not get satisfying results in the Qatar tournament we made good
assessments of our players' capabilities."
Robson's Thailand face a must-win game in their penultimate
match at home to Jordan on Wednesday.
Thailand slumped to a surprise 1-0 home defeat by Singapore in
December only four days after beating their Southeast Asian
rivals 3-1 away, leaving qualification out of their hands.
Robson then followed that result by coaching the under-23
side to a surprise first round exit in the South East Asian
Games last month.
"We slipped up, but the players know how important this
game is and they've been working really hard," the former
England captain told Reuters.
"It is a must win game but the pressure's not on us any more
than the other three teams. They've had bad results when they
really didn't want to have bad results."
ASIAN HEAVYWEIGHTS
With the games not falling on an official FIFA
international match date, Asian heavyweights Australia and
Japan have been robbed of most of their European-based players
for their away matches.
Japan need just a point in Yemen on Wednesday to clinch
qualification from Group A and coach Takeshi Okada has given 13
players their first call-ups to the squad for the match.
Bahrain can also qualify from Group A if they beat Hong
Kong and Yemen fail to beat Japan.
Australia face a much trickier task away to Group B leaders
Kuwait, who stunned the Socceroos with a 1-0 win in Canberra
last year.
The teams are level on seven points from four matches and
both can qualify on Wednesday depending on the result of the
other group match between Indonesia and Oman in Jakarta.
In Group D, China can join Syria in qualifying if they beat
the West Asian side in Hangzhou.
"We will concentrate on attack in training over the next
few days. We've got to beat Syria," team manager Du Wei told
Monday's Titan Sports newspaper.