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World Cup Qualification Thread for 2026 - Socceroos/Asia

More traffic here than the best goal thread

Best and fairest: Irvine

Best find: Velupillay

Most improved: Miller

Biggest disappointment: O'Neill

Best comeback: Degenek
 
patjennings said:
Where did you get that? We have gone ahead of Ecuador now and Senegal does not look like they will get 1 of the direct spots so we may be in Pot 2 as it stands now. Problem is that some of the CAF teams may overtake us as they have meaningful games before the draw in December.
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It was from a football website. I forget which. It was just that websites guesses.
 
JS96 said:
More traffic here than the best goal thread

Best and fairest: Irvine

Best find: Velupillay

Most improved: Miller

Biggest disappointment: O'Neill

Best comeback: Degenek
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Miller most improved ???
 
JS96 said:
Was a low bar. Scored some important goals and occasionally attacked better. Still a liability. I read he was the only player to start every game under Popovic.
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Fark
Train wreck for me.
Yes I recall one of the goals header from memory - and another game he did pump some good cross’s but nobody there most times.
Some good I suppose but damn a lot of damn ordinary play for NT levels like our yellow shirt should have good L plate on his front and back.
 
LFC said:
Fark
Train wreck for me.
Yes I recall one of the goals header from memory - and another game he did pump some good cross’s but nobody there most times.
Some good I suppose but damn a lot of damn ordinary play for NT levels like our yellow shirt should have good L plate on his front and back.
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Poppa said he was a frustrating player. He said most of our best moments involve him but also lots of our worst
 
verrelli said:
Stoked to see us qualifying for WC2026 but I'm wondering how you came to the conclusion that this was the toughest Asian opposition we've ever played in WCQs. I think that is pretty questionable, on the basis that:

* There were 6 automatic qualification spots up for grabs in the 3rd round of qualifying, as opposed to 4 spots in previous cycles, which undeniably means that the bar has been lowered and the overall strength of teams in this phase was diluted compared to previous cycles.
* It is a widely held view that the Saudi Arabia team is nowhere near as strong as what they were in the previous couple of cycles. They got 13 points from 10 games versus 23 points from 10 games four years ago and 19 points from 10 games eight years ago.
* We played Japan's B team in one of the fixtures (and were still considerably outplayed, and I think almost everyone would agree that we were lucky to get any points out of that game, let alone a win).
* We had a draw and a loss a very weak Bahrain team, as evidenced by them failing to record a win in any of their other 8 matches.

As a quick aside, I'd say that we were very fortunate in the final moments of the home game against Saudi Arabia that their late goal which would have been decisive was fairly contentiously ruled out due to another player in Gauci's line of sight.
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The high quality of all of Indo, Saudi and Japan A or B in the group.

Based on technique, and execution of game plans on the ball, off the ball, and sound tactics, and implementation of them.

I think even including China and Bahrain, also using sage game plans and execution of them, there were no easy games.
 
NicCarBel said:
Just on this point - I don't think that's entirely correct. While the whole third round across the AFC was diluted by this, the 'strength' of our group was still the same/similar.

2022 rankings of our group:
Japan (24)
Australia (35)
Saudi Arabia (61)
China (71)
Oman (79)
Vietnam (92)

Compared to 2026 (in which 4 of the nations remained exactly the same)
Japan (17)
Australia (23)
Saudi Arabia (56)
Bahrain (81)
China (88)
Indonesia (134)

Only Indonesia fall outside of the same rankings range from 2022 qualifying, and the top 3 seeds in our 2026 group (including ourselves) were ranked stronger at the time of the draw than in 2022, and also had the 4 highest seeds in each pot - arguably making it on paper the toughest of the 3 groups.
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Indo have improved markedly in recent times.

Most of the team play Eredivisie. with another in Serie A and an English Champ player.
 
Decentric said:
Indo have improved markedly in recent times.

Most of the team play Eredivisie. with another in Serie A and an English Champ player.
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yeah indonesia's improvement nationalizing half the netherlands hasn't shown up in the fifa rankings, but even ignoring that it is still a harder group than last time because saudi and Japan have improved their rankings
 
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