32 For 2010: North Korea

Football just ain’t fair sometimes. When you’ve waited 44 years to qualify for only your second World Cup like North Korea have, the last thing you’d want is to be drawn in the same group as Brazil, Portugal and the Ivory Coast.

That, however, is as good a reason why the East Asians are 1,000-1 to win the 2010 World Cup. Football observers with a glass-half-full temperament are quick to point out that these odds might be a little unfair given North Korea’s heroics during the 1966 World Cup. Back then, not even Chile or Italy could topple them in the first round and were 3-0 up in their quarter final before Eusebio almost single-handedly sent them packing.

The 2010 competition could be one of limited joy for Kim Jong-hun and his team, yet you feel they deserve to acheive something of tokenistic value in South Africa next month. Their qualification campaign has been a lengthy one, starting as it did with a two-leg tie against Mongolia in October 2007, and saw them playing their neighbours south of the border four times over two rounds. The fact that they got through from first round to last with more than enough points in the bank and only one defeat to South Korea shows what a battling outfit they are these days.

Their success in qualifying has been based squarely on their staunchly defensive tactics. Several teams including Jordan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and South Korea all failed to score against the North Koreans, but one can’t help but feel the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Fabiano and Didier Drogba will have altogether better luck when the Communist state arrives for its first match in Johannesburg on June 15th.

Of the players in their squad, few play outside the country’s borders although one that does, Jong Tae-se of Kawasaki Frontale, has carved out a reputation as one of the best strikers in the J-League – ‘the Asian Wayne Rooney’, as he’s already been labelled. Another striker, Hong Yong-jo, is proving similarly successful with FK Rostov in Russia, and between them they’ll need to be at their most prolific if they’re to get North Korea to the knockout stages of the 2010 World Cup. If they’re not, the role of goalkeeper Ri Myong-guk and sweeper Ri Jun-il will take on even more significance.

One matter may prove decisive above player selection, however, and that’s the man selecting the players. Coach Kim Jong-hun has done a great job in getting South Korea’s oft-forgotten rivals back into the world football spotlight again, but many are wondering if he’ll soon be shown the door in favour of a foreigner with more experience. Such an act would surely be futile as anyone looking to reprogram DPRK’s fiercely defensive unit at this late stage would have a tough job on their hands. There again, Bora Milutinovic is currently out of contract so anything’s possible.

It’s almost clichéd to suggest North Korea will be looking to reach the second round this summer, but to be brutally honest a draw against Portugal or Ivory Coast in Group G will go down as something realistically worthwhile of note. As for Jong-hun’s preposterous claim that they’re aiming to reach the last eight, we’ll politely draw a veil over that.

The irony of all this is that most of North Korea’s 23 million population probably won’t see its team’s travails next month. SBS, the South Korean TV broadcaster, was planning to allow North Korea access to its pictures throughout the competition but the torpedoing of a South Korean warship by North Korea in March (leading to the death of 46 sailors) has prompted SBS to pull the plug.

A pity, that, for this will be a rare chance to see the chollima on the biggest stage in world football and no-one can say for certain when the next one will come along. The search for another Pak Doo Ik continues.

World Cup 2010 Qualifying Report: Asia

Group 2

North Korea have become the fourth and final team from Asia to win an automatic qualification spot for World Cup 2010.

The North Koreans went into yesterday’s final round of matches in Group 2 already occupying second place behind South Korea and only needed a draw to confirm their place in South Africa next year.

After a competitive battle in near 40 degree heat, the Saudis were unable use their home advantage to break down a resolute North Korean defence and the game finished 0-0.

That draw means North Korea have confirmed only their second ever qualification to the World Cup Finals, the previous occasion being the famous campaign of 1966 which featured a famous win over Italy and an exciting 5-3 defeat against Portugal.

As for Saudi Arabia, they finish in third place which confirms their place in the play-off against the third-place team in Group 1, Bahrain. The winner of that match will go on to play Oceania champions New Zealand later in the year for a place in the Finals.

Iran started the day knowing that a win over South Korea in Seoul would have given them a great chance of taking second spot in the group but they could only draw 1-1. The Iranians, to their credit, took the lead after 52 minutes thanks to Masoud Shojaei but they struggled to extend their lead and when Park Ji Sung equalised with eight minutes remaining, they had little left to offer.

The North Koreans consequently went into their match knowing a draw would be good enough for them, and as Saudi coach Jose Peseiro said “[they] just came here to bag one point, and they did.”

So the North Koreans become the sixth team on the list for South Africa 2010 and complete a marvellous achievement in their country’s sporting history. Congratulations to them…

Group 1

Meanwhile in the altogether calmer waters of Group 1, the focus was also on third place. Australia and Japan had already taken the automatic qualification places, but it was up to Bahrain (placed third going into yesterday’s games) to earn the draw they need to enter the inter-group play-off.

That they did by beating bottom-of-the-group Uzbekistan 1-0 in Manama. Mahmood Abdulrahman’s 74th-minute strike came after an evenly balanced and tense opening to the game, but in truth the Uzbekis had offered little in the way of decent chances and were unable to find an equaliser when it mattered.

The margin of victory, though small, was good enough to see Bahrain through to a September play-off against previous Finalists Saudi Arabia and it looks to be a tough match to call. More news on that in a few months time.

Also for the record, Australia and Japan played in Melbourne yesterday. The match ended as a 2-1 win for the Aussies, both goals coming from Everton’s Tim Cahill in the second half after Tulio Tanaka had given Japan the lead after 39 minutes.

World Cup 2010 Qualifying Update (Part 4)

And so to the fourth and final part of our round -up of the May and June World Cup 2010 qualifiers. Today we cover the Asia and Oceania sections...

Asia

Overview
A complicated process here. In Round 1, thirty-eight teams faced each other in nineteen home-and-away matches. Of the nineteen winners, the eleven highest-ranking teams (and by that we think FIFA mean those teams that won by the biggest margins) received a bye to Round 3 while the other eight played out Round 2 as a series of four home-and-away ties.

The winners of those games advanced to Round 3 where they went into the hat with the eleven biggest winners from Round 1 and the top five seeded teams overall who were given a bye (among whom were Australia, Japan and South Korea). These 20 teams were then drawn into five round-robin groups of four where the winners and runners-up go through to Round 4. (Just for the record, Round 3 has just finished - more of which shortly - and Round 4 gets underway on September 6th).

Finally in Round 4, the ten remaining teams are split into two round-robin groups of five. The winners and runners-up from both groups will qualify for World Cup 2010, while the two third-placed teams go into a home-and-away play-off. The winner of that play-off... does NOT qualify for the World Cup Finals, oh no - for them there's the agony of one more play-off against the top team from Oceania.

Then and only then will we know all the Asian teams going through to South Africa 2010... by which time qualification for World Cup 2014 will probably be underway, but never mind...

News
So as mentioned before, Round 3 came to an end towards the end of June and of all the five groups involved, Group 1 was easily the toughest fought. In it were Asian champions Iraq, Australia - relative newcomers to the Asian zone and one of the favourites, 2002 World Cup finalists China and the never-to-be-overlooked threat of Qatar.

If we say that none of the four teams managed to win any more than there of their six games, that should give you a measure of their collective lack of consistency. Australia seemed to make the best start with wins over Qatar and Iraq and a draw against China, but defeats to China and Iraq were to follow soon after and the Aussies were by no means certain of finishing in the top two going into the final round of games.

Fortunately for them, the threat from Iraq fizzled out in the last game of the group as Qatar gained a vital three points to snatch the runner-up spot in the group. Though they'd lost in both matches to the Australians, Qatar did well against the other teams in the group, and with China's only win coming in their last game against Australia, it was the Aussies and Qatar (above right) that booked their place in Round 4.

Group 2 had one clear favourite in the shape of Japan, and they didn't disappoint, topping the group with thirteen points from a possible eighteen. That meant there'd be a bit of a surprise in finding out who would take second spot in the group, and it would eventually go to Bahrain.

For them, the battle was won in the first half of their campaign, winning their opening three games against all of their opponents. The only team likely to stop them were Oman, but their challenge was never a strong one so Bahrain were home and hosed going into their last match against Japan who had already qualified. Thailand finished last in the group with just one point, picked up from their home match against Bahrain.

Group 3, similarly, had two front runners of its own and with a pleasant sense of symmetry and international accord, both qualifiers came from either side of the Korean border. Shoot, they even finished on the same amount of points in the end. Beat that, Ban Ki-moon.

Yes, it was a Korean one-two in the end with the South blazing their way to the top of the group unbeaten and scoring ten goals while conceding only three. The North matched them point for point, winning three and drawing the other three of their games, but they had a much more economical approach. They scored just four and didn't concede any. I think that's what's known as a 'mean defence', isn't it?

The other two teams in the group, Jordan and Turkmenistan, could hardly get a look in and had to make do with trying to score points off each other. This turned out to be a fruitful exercise for Jordan who beat the Turkmen 2-0 on both occasions, but neither could get any more than a single point off the two Koreas.

And so it ended with South Korea top and North Korea second, split only on goal difference, with Jordan finishing third, five points behind and Turkmenistan last on just one. And you might be wondering how those peace-loving Koreans faired when they played each other? The answer: both games ended goalless. How very amicable.

There was another two-horse race in Group 4, this time won easily by Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, well ahead of Singapore and Lebanon. The two favourites made light work of their opponents, both winning five out of their six games. Their only defeats would turn out to be against each other.

Singapore's six points came from both their wins over the hapless Lebanese team who ended their campaign with a big fat zero in the Points column, but at least they can rest assured they didn't suffer the biggest humiliation of the competition. That undoubtedly went to Singapore who lost 7-3 at home to Uzbekistan despite being level at 2-2 just half an hour into the game.

Finally to Group 5 where Iran and the United Arab Emirates were expected to be the runaway favourites, but only Iran lived up to their reputation. Despite a slow start, Iran finished their campaign with three draws and three wins and comfortably topped the group on twelve points.

The UAE, however, were less sure of themselves. They had to fight off the attentions of Syria who were also struggling to gain any consistency and as the competition wore on, the daylight between them grew less and less. It was with considerable irony, then, that both teams met each other in a do-or-die game to decide the final qualifying spot in the group.

Syria needed to beat the Emirates by three clear goals to go above them on goal difference. Adopting a predictably offensive strategy, Syria went 2-0 up thanks to a goal either side of half time from Jehad Al Houssain, but with just seven minutes left on the clock, any hopes the Syrians had of winning came to an abrupt end. UAE striker Ismail Matar converted a penalty to pull the score back to 2-1, and though Syria picked up a third through Firas Al Khatib a minute from time, it was not enough. The United Arab Emirates were through to the next round by a single goal and the gallant Syrians were out.

With the ten qualifying teams known, the draw was made for the two Fourth Round groups, and here's how the teams fell into place:



At first glance, Group 2 appears to be the toughest, containing three of the five group winners from the previous round. It also features the inseparable pairing of North and South Korea along with the tough Uzbekis, although Group 1 will see a fascinating re-enactment of the Australia / Qatar tussle with Japan thrown in for good measure, too.

By way of a prediction, we're going for Uzbekistan, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia as the four automatic qualifiers with Australia and the United Arab Emirates entering the Round 5 play-off. If that's the way it all pans out, you can expect some great games and some shocks along the way...

Oceania

Background
Easy-peasy, this. Nine teams started out in Round 1 (ten, if you include the non-FIFA affiliated Tuvalu), and from them, three progressed to Round 2 to join the seeded New Zealand.

In Round 2, all four teams play in a round-robin group and the winning team goes through to a play-off against the fifth best team from Asia.

News
As you'd expect, New Zealand are the hot favourites to represent Oceania in that Asian play-off and so far they've won all three of their games to lead the group. New Caledonia (seen right against Tuvalu) are only a point behind them at the moment, but they've played an extra match and the other two teams, Fiji and Vanuatu trail way behind with just a point each.



So the big question is 'when do New Zealand and New Caledonia play each other next'? Well as luck would have it, that's on September 6th in Noumea and if the All Whites win, they'll have virtually booked their place in the Asian play-off. Only a win for New Caledonia in the second match against New Zealand four days later and a loss for New Zealand against Fiji in November will provide any opportunity for the New Caledonians to succeed.

And that's that. All the qualifiers thus far have now been covered, but there are more on the way during the next month or so and you can bet we'll be back to give you news of those when they happen. Hopefully this time you won't have to wait so long for them, if you're lucky...