2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) section of 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification was allocated four assured qualifying berths for the final tournament in South Africa and one place in a play-off. 43 teams were in the running for these spots, while Laos, Brunei and the Philippines did not enter qualification. This was the first time Timor-Leste competed in World Cup qualification and the first time Australia attempted to qualify for the World Cup as a member of the AFC, having moved from the Oceania Football Confederation at the start of 2006. Note that this edition saw the first effective participation of Myanmar. The country, called "Burma" until 1989, was registered three times (1950, 1994, 2002) but withdrew each time before playing.
Asia's four automatic qualifying berths were taken by Australia, Japan and both North and South Korea. Bahrain failed to become a fifth Asian representative in the World Cup after losing the play-off match against Oceanian representatives New Zealand.
Seeding
The initial seeding (used in the draw for the first two rounds) was based on each team's performance during the qualification stage for the previous World Cup. The admission of Australia to the AFC complicated matters slightly (as they had not taken part in the previous AFC qualification cycle, but had progressed to the World Cup finals in Germany – and had advanced further than the AFC qualifiers).
Initially, the AFC placed Australia as the first seed even though this contradicted the letter of the seeding – past practice (such as adopted by the AFC in the draw for the qualification to the 2008 Olympic Football Tournament) would have seeded Australia last.
By the time of the main qualification draw in Durban (which included the AFC third round), the seeding had been adjusted to rank the top 5 AFC nations according to their performance in the World Cup Final Tournament (of 2006). This resulted in minor changes to the seeding at that point.
Seeding for the first two rounds
Teams ranked 1–5 received a bye from the first two knockout rounds and are entered into the third round.
Teams ranked 6–43 entered at the first round, with teams ranked from 6–24 drawn against teams ranked from 25 to 43.
Of the first round winners, the eight lowest remaining seeds would go on to play in the second round. The other teams would receive a bye to the third round.
Guam and Bhutan withdrew after the draw, but before playing any matches.
First round
The official draw took place on 6 August 2007 at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Teams from Pot A were randomly paired with a team from Pot B.
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For security reasons, Iraq played their home leg in Syria, Palestine played their home leg in Qatar and Afghanistan played their home leg in Tajikistan.
Bhutan withdrew.
Guam withdrew.
FIFA decided to move Myanmar home match to Malaysia.
Timor-Leste elected to play their home leg in Indonesia.
Palestine failed to appear; Singapore was awarded a 3–0 win. The Palestine Football Federation appealed to have the match rescheduled on the grounds that its players did not receive permits to leave the Gaza Strip, but FIFA dismissed the appeal.
Second round
Of the nineteen teams that progressed from the first round, the eight lowest seeded teams by FIFA rankings were required to play in the second round (the other eleven teams received a bye to the third round). As with the first round the draw took place on 6 August 2007 at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
As the teams involved were not known at the time, the draw placed teams ranked 16–19 against teams ranked 12–15. The ties drawn were
17th against 14th
16th against 12th
18th against 13th
19th against 15th
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Third round
The top 5 seeds were joined by the eleven highest-ranked winners from the first round and the four second round winners.
Qualified teams
1 On 30 October 2007, the Kuwait Football Association was suspended from international football competitions by FIFA. On 9 November 2007, Kuwait was conditionally reinstated to international football competitions by FIFA.
Seeding
These 20 teams were drawn into five groups of four teams at the main group draw in Durban, South Africa on 25 November 2007. The seeding for the main draw was the same for the first two rounds, with the exception that the five seeded nations (those that qualified for the 2006 finals) were ordered on the basis of results in the 2006 finals tournament. This saw Iran move from fifth to third, and Japan and Saudi Arabia ranked equal fourth.
The four seeding Pots used were:
Groups
The teams in each group played each other twice, once home and once away. The teams that finished first and second in their group qualified for the fourth round.
Group 1
On 26 May 2008, FIFA decided to suspend Iraq from all international competitions after the Iraq Football Association was disbanded by the government on 20 May 2008. The suspension was provisionally and conditionally lifted on 29 May 2008.
Qatar fielded ineligible player Emerson in the 2–0 defeat to Iraq on 26 March 2008, prompting FIFA to controversially suspend him but clear Qatar of any wrongdoing, in direct contradiction to its decisions against Singapore.
Iraq appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but it was rejected by the CAS, saying that Iraq submitted documents and appeal fees too late.
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5
Fourth round
In the fourth round, the 10 remaining teams were drawn into 2 groups of 5 teams.
Qualified teams
* Positions based on original final standings
Seeding
The 10 qualifiers were drawn into two groups of five teams at the draw in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 27 June 2008. The seeding for the fourth round was based on that used in the third round draw, but Saudi Arabia and Japan (seeded equal 4th in that draw) were separated by a random selection held at the start of the fourth round draw.
The top 6 ranked qualifiers were split into 3 pots of 2 teams, with the bottom 4 ranked nations grouped together in a separate pot. Each group was allocated 1 team from each of Pots 1, 2 and 3, and 2 teams from Pot 4.
Groups
The teams in each group played each other twice, once home and once away. The top 2 teams in each group qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Finals in South Africa. The third-placed teams met in a play-off to determine who would play the OFC winner, New Zealand, in a separate playoff for a spot in the Finals.
Group A
Group B
Fifth round
Teams finishing 3rd in the fourth round groups played each other to determine a possible 5th qualifier from Asia. The draw for the order in which the two matches would be played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau, the Bahamas.
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Bahrain advanced to the Asia-Oceania play-off on the away goals rule.
Inter-confederation play-offs
The Fifth Round winner then played the winner of the OFC qualifying group, New Zealand, in a home-and-away play-off. The winner of this play-off qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals.
The draw for the order in which the two matches would be played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau, the Bahamas.
Qualified teams
The following four teams from AFC qualified for the final tournament.
1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.
Goalscorers
There were 374 goals scored in 145 games (including 2 international play-offs), for an average of 2.58 goals per game.
8 goals
Sarayoot Chaikamdee
Maksim Shatskikh
6 goals
Ahmad Ajab
Ismail Matar
5 goals
Mohammed Ghaddar
Sebastián Soria
Park Ji-Sung
Zyad Chaabo
4 goals
Tim Cahill
Brett Emerton
Cheng Siu Wai
Javad Nekounam
Mahdi Karim
Hassan Abdel Fattah
Hong Yong-Jo
Jong Chol-Min
Abdoh Otaif
Aleksandar Đurić
Park Chu-Young
Jehad Al-Hussain
Raja Rafe
Numondzhon Khakimov
Server Djeparov
3 goals
Joshua Kennedy
Harry Kewell
Mahmood Abdulrahman
A'ala Hubail
Salman Isa
Chan Siu Ki
Emad Mohammed
Yasuhito Endō
Shunsuke Nakamura
Yuji Nakazawa
Marcus Tulio Tanaka
Pak Chol-Min
Sayed Ali Bechir
Yasser Al-Qahtani
Malek Mouath
Redha Tukar
John Wilkinson
Kim Do-Heon
Lee Keun-Ho
Mohamed Al Zeno
Datsakorn Thonglao
Teeratep Winothai
Ary
Mohamed Al-Shehhi
Odil Ahmedov
Timur Kapadze
Farhod Tadjiyev
2 goals
Mark Bresciano
Faouzi Aaish
Ismail Abdullatif
Abdulla Baba Fatadi
Jaycee John Okwunwanne
Liu Jian
Qu Bo
Sunil Chhetri
Gholamreza Rezaei
Masoud Shojaei
Nashat Akram
Kengo Nakamura
Yoshito Ōkubo
Keiji Tamada
Mahmoud El Ali
Kin Seng Chan
Choe Kum-Chol
Mun In-Guk
Ismail Sulaiman Al Ajmi
Amad Al Hosni
Fábio César Montezine
Ahmed Al-Fraidi
Saad Al-Harthi
Osama Hawsawi
Naif Hazazi
Shi Jiayi
Mohd Noh Alam Shah
Ki Sung-Yueng
Kwak Tae-Hwi
Seol Ki-Hyeon
Firas Al-Khatib
Feras Esmaeel
Teerasil Dangda
Artur Gevorkyan
Mamedaly Karadanov
Mekan Nasyrov
Basheer Saeed
Victor Karpenko
1 goal
Obaidullah Karimi
David Carney
Scott Chipperfield
Mile Sterjovski
Sayed Mohamed Adnan
Zumratul Hossain Mithu
Samel Nasa
Du Zhenyu
Li Jinyu
Wu Wei'an
Li Weifang
Sun Xiang
Yang Lin
Zhang Yaokun
Zheng Bin
Zheng Zhi
Cheung Sai Ho
Lam Ka Wai
Lo Kwan Yee
Steven Dias
Budi Sudarsono
Karim Bagheri
Jalal Hosseini
Ali Karimi
Mohsen Khalili
Mehdi Mahdavikia
Alireza Vahedi Nikbakht
Ferydoon Zandi
Jassim Mohammed Ghulam
Hawar Mulla Mohammed
Seiichiro Maki
Shinji Okazaki
Tatsuya Tanaka
Atsuto Uchida
Waseem Al-Bzour
Hatem Aqel
Thaer Bawab
Mahmoud Shelbaieh
Fahad Al-Rashidi
Aibek Bokoyev
Cholponbek Esenkul Uulu
Roda Antar
Mohd Bunyamin Omar
Ali Ashfaq
Shamveel Qasim
Donorovyn Lkhümbengarav
Odkhuu Selenge
An Chol-Hyok
Jon Kwang-Ik
Jong Tae-Se
Kim Kuk-Jin
Pak Nam-Chol
Mohamed Al Hinai
Ahmed Mubarak Al Mahaijri
Fawzi Bashir
Hassan Mudhafar
Hashim Saleh
Ali Afif
Talal Al-Bloushi
Saad Al-Shammari
Khalfan Ibrahim
Magid Mohamed
Majdi Siddiq
Hamad Al-Montashari
Osama Al-Muwallad
Nasser Al-Shamrani
Mustafic Fahrudin
Fazrul Nawaz
Kim Chi-Woo
Maher Al Sayed
Aatef Jenyat
Sanharib Malki
Jamshed Ismailov
Dzhomikhon Mukhiddinov
Dilshod Vasiev
Patiparn Phetphun
Totchtawan Sripan
Suree Sukha
Nirut Surasiang
Wladimir Baýramow
Arif Mirzoyev
Guvanch Ovekov
Saif Mohammed Al Bishr
Nawaf Mubarak
Ismail Al Hammadi
Saeed Al-Kas
Ahmed Mohammed Al-Mahri
Abdulrahim Jumaa
Faisal Khalil
Subait Khater
Ulugbek Bakayev
Vitaliy Denisov
Alexander Geynrikh
Aziz Ibrahimov
Islom Inomov
Shavkat Salomov
Anvarjon Soliev
Ilhomjon Suyunov
Fekri Al-Hubaishi
Ali Al Nono
Mohammed Salem
Haitham Thabit
1 own goal
Marcus Tulio Tanaka (playing against Bahrain)
Ramez Dayoub (playing against Singapore)
Ahmed Faris Al-Binali (playing against Japan)
Baihakki Khaizan (playing against Lebanon)
Anas Al Khouja (playing against Kuwait)
Alfredo Esteves (playing against Hong Kong)
Fares Juma (playing against Saudi Arabia)
References
External links
AFC Qualification 2010 Official Website
Asian zone at FIFA.com
AFC
FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)