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Qatar 2023 – Asian Cup Review

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12 March 2024

The 2023 Asian Cup was not the most exciting ever. Hosted by Qatar between 2 January and 10 February 2024, it was originally meant to be hosted by China in 2023. Due to China’s strict COVID-19 policies, on 14 May 2022 the Asian Football Confederation decided China would not host the event, and the AFC searched for a new host. Qatar, who were current Asian Cup champions, were eventually selected as hosts.

Qatar 2023 Asian Cup Review

While the late change in schedule had minor impact overall in a football sense, and most people would not even know of the change until noticing the 2023 Asian Cup was played in 2024, it did mean that two editions in a row of the tournament were held in the Persian Gulf, with the United Arab Emirates hosting in 2019. The inconvenience for Australian viewers was, due to the time zone, many matches were on well past midnight. While Australia’s group games were scheduled as the first game of the day (late evening Australian time), as was their first knockout game, the quarter final was late, as were both semi finals and the final. Access was also an issue. Channel 10 only showed Australia’s games, and only the knockout games that lay in Australia’s path (whether Australia reached them or not). The remaining games were consigned to their subscription service.

For Australia, the 2023 Asian Cup was mixed bag of results. While individual games produced good results, the tournament ended in disappointment. In the first two games, the Socceroos just did enough to overcome the stubborn defences of India (2-0) and Syria (1-0). In the final group game, a late goal by Uzbekistan saw a 1-1 draw and Australia losing a chance of setting a new Australian record for most consecutive matches in which they did not concede a goal. Still, it’s difficult to pick at the team and coach Graham Arnold for winning the group comfortably, and setting themselves up for a relatively easy run though the knockout phase.

In the round of 16, Australia kept composed against an energetic Indonesia and scored goals when needed. The 4-0 demolition set up an appetising quarter final against South Korea. It’s here where Australia, ironically, had their best game of the tournament. Disciplined and composed for much of the game against a clearly superior Korean team that dominated possession, Australia went ahead just before half time thanks to a classy move that saw eventually Craig Goodwin volley the ball home.

In the second half, Australia missed three open chances, including a header on an open goal by Mitchell Duke, to extend their lead to two goals. Just when it looked like Australia would win anyway, disaster struck. Four minutes into additional time, Lewis Miller conceded a sloppy and completely unnecessary penalty, which Hwang Hee-chan converted. Now into extra time, the same player conceded a foul just outside the box, to which Son Heung-min scored from a direct free kick on 104 minutes. Game over.

Definitely a disappointing exit for Australia, and the second tournament straight they were eliminated at the quarter final stage. A semi final spot was probably the pass mark for most viewers, and had Australia beaten Korea, Jordan, who qualified from the group phase as one of the third best teams, would have awaited in the semi final. Jordan went on to upset the Koreans 2-0 in the semi final, before losing 3-1 to Qatar in the final, where all of Qatar’s goals were penalties. The penalties all looked all legitimate anyway, so no accusations of anything there, only that it would have been nice to see one or two goals scored directly from the field.

The next Asian Cup will return to its usual 4-year cycle, so is only 3 years away. It’s scheduled for January 2027 with Saudi Arabia the hosts. So, again, not a great time zone for Australians or any country in east Asia. Let’s at least hope for some better TV coverage.

Australia – Results

Group Stage

Australia 2 (Jackson Irvine 50′, Jordan Bos 73′)
India 0

Syria 0
Australia 1 (Jackson Irvine 59′)

Australia 1 (Martin Boyle 45+1′ PK)
Uzbekistan 1 (Azizbek Turgunboev 78′)

Round of 16

Australia 4 (Elkan Baggott 12′ OG, Martin Boyle 45′, Craig Goodwin 89′, Harry Souttar 90+1)
Indonesia 0

Quarter Final

Australia 1 (Craig Goodwin 42′)
South Korea 2 AET (Hwang Hee-chan 90+6′ PK, Son Heung-min 104′)

United Arab Emirates 2019 – Asian Cup Review

Asia fails and sticking with a France v Argentina final

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27 June 2014

With the match-ups for the knockout stage complete, other than Spain’s early and humiliating exit, there’s actually been very few surprises overall for the tournament. Only Group D where both Italy and England failed to progress from the group, at the expense of Costa Rica and Uruguay, could you point to a surprise. Maybe Portugal in Group G is a small surprise at finishing third behind Germany and the USA.

The small upset in Group D means the earlier prediction of one semi final being Argentina vs Netherlands is all the more likely. The Dutch face Mexico then either Costa Rica or Greece, while Argentina must navigate past Switzerland and then either Belgium or USA. For either to fail to reach the semi, that would be an upset.

Knockout Stage Matches

Left Side

BRA v CHI
COL v URU
FRA v NGA
GER v ALG

Right Side

NED v MEX
CRC v GRE
ARG v SUI
BEL v USA

Despite the tougher run for both teams, I’m sticking with Brazil and France to reach the other semi. Brazil plays Chile and then either Colombia or Uruguay. Interesting that four of the five South American qualifiers play each other, meaning three can’t make the semi. Argentina stands alone for South America on the right side of the draw. The fact Brazil plays its fellow South Americans should be comforting to them. The times Brazil have been knocked out early it’s been by Europeans. Their opponents will be very familiar and most will play in the more open South American style that will suit Brazil.

The lower part of the left side should see France and Germany brush past Nigeria and Algeria, respectively, to then meet in a quarter final. Forget about France only securing a 0-0 against Ecuador in the final pool game as a case against their legitimacy as a contender With any luck, France could have scored the same bagful that they did against Switzerland and Honduras. They seem to have the fire power to break down Germany.

From the semi finals, I expect Brazil to crumble under pressure, from both the burden of being host and the fear of France’s attacking prowess. The Dutch defence has already been exposed as suspect, so expect Argentina to get through.

In the earlier preview, I cheekily said the team in dark blue to win the final, thinking both France and Argentina coud be wearing a dark strip depending on who is drawn as the nominal home team. Except, France’s dark blue is their home strip, and Argentina’s is their away strip, so there’s no clash. France will be in dark blue against the faint stripes of Argentina. It looks like it’s France to win the World Cup!

While France might be the prediction, who do I actually want to win? As always, a new team would be great. Based on the draw, Colombia vs Netherlands would suit perfectly, with the Dutch to win. So many near misses, including such a narrow loss to Spain four years ago, it’s time they won. If Colombia are the designated home team, Netherlands will just happen to be in dark blue too.

Asia’s failure – we’re not alone

All four Asian teams finished last in their group and could only accrue a total of 3 points between them. That’s courtesy of a draw each from Iran, Japan and Korea. Australia, in the toughest group, finished with nothing. While it’s disappointing, it should not be surprising, since Asia is still a fly-weight on the world stage. Only in the home World Cup in Korea and Japan did Asian teams excel, with Japan reaching the quarter finals and Korea finishing fourth.

Before anyone points fingers at querying Asia’s allocation of four spots at the World Cup, Africa and Europe can hardly claim a strong success rate from their allocation either. Three of 5 African teams bombed out, with the other two likely to be swept aside in the first knockout game. Excluding Algeria – an Arab team – it’s three of 4 failures from a region that was so widely hyped that Pele famously predicted they’d win a World Cup before last century’s end. They’ve gone backwards. As for Europe, seven of their 13 teams failed too. Europe, especially, benefits from a weight of numbers, and who’s to say that if more Asian teams were in the World Cup, some would not progress?

Asia’s small allocation meant they could not spread their numbers throughout all groups, and therefore have a team in all the weaker groups (even if three of them actually did have a reasonable draw). Does this mean Asia’s allocation should be altered? No. The only change should be that its half spot is linked with Oceania. This was part of the bargain for allowing Australia to enter Asia – that effectively Australia would not take a spot from the traditional Asian teams. At worst, such teams would finish fifth, and play against New Zealand. That happened for 2010 when Bahrain lost to NZ, which left no room for Asia to complain. For 2014, FIFA as they always do, re-jigged the rules to suit the more powerful confederations, meaning a random draw for cross-region playoffs that saw Asia face South America and Oceania face CONCACAF.

The World Cup is meant to represent the best teams in each part of the world. Ideally you have 8 teams from each approximately 50-team quadrant (Europe, Africa, Asia/Oceania, Americas) at the World Cup. Until all regions mature to a relatively equal standard, the best approach is continue performance based with a minium of four. Ideally this process should be more transparent so to end the ritual squabbling for spots. You do that by allocating spots based on an average of top 16 of the previous three World Cups. Meaning if Asia/Oceania had two teams in the top 16 for the last 3 World Cups, they get six spots. If Europe begin to average only 6 teams in the top 16, then their total spots should be 10.

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