Why does Australia in Oceania have a mixed AFC sequence?

Every time you talk about the geography of football, you have to separate it from the real geography, otherwise you will be confused: why does Israel, which is all in Asia, want to participate in the European Championship, why does Australia, which belongs to Oceania, participate in the European Cup? Why does Australia, which belongs to Oceania, a member of the AFC? This also explains the current situation of Asian football on a certain level - a springboard to a higher level of competition.

Why was Australia able to participate in the Asian Cup, and why did Australia belong to the AFC? Australia originally stayed well in Oceania and was the absolute boss of Oceania, so why did it go to the AFC to join in the fun? It turned out that every time in the World Cup qualifying play-offs, Oceania seemed to have half a place, but it always "delivered food" to teams in Central and North America, the Caribbean, or South America. So, the "football kangaroo" came up with the idea of saving the country with a curve, and after several applications, he finally became a member of the AFC.

Out of the big into Asia, Australia is only for the World Cup.

With their location in Oceania, Australia's journey to the World Cup has been difficult. Australia had to compete with Asian teams in the early days to qualify for the World Cup and have not been able to qualify for the World Cup since, except for qualifying for the World Cup after beating South Korea in 1974.

In the eyes of Australians, the main reason is the demanding World Cup qualifying format. In Oceania, you can only get o by overcoming obstacles all the way. For 5 places, you still need to play against teams from Asia or the Americas. Australia lost to Argentina in the World Cup qualifiers in the United States, Iran to Iran in the World Cup, and Japan and South Korea lost to Uruguay in the World Cup...... The Australian Football Federation believes that the only way to reach the World Cup is to break away from the Oceania zone.

In fact, Australia's clever desire to join the AFC came about 5o years ago, having tried to join the AFC four times in 196o, 1962, 1972 and 1974, but to no avail. It wasn't until 2oo5 that he got his wish.

On the issue of "introducing" Australia, AFC President Hammam and the East Asian Football Associations have played an active role.

After the AFC's internal executive committee discussed and agreed in principle to Australia's entry into the AFC, Hamann even said that he would personally go to FIFA to mediate to help the Australian Football Association pass the FIFA level. At that time, Hammam also clearly explained the benefits of Australia's accession in two aspects in an interview with the media: "This matter is beneficial to the AFC, firstly, the level of Australian football is very high, and their participation will promote the improvement of the overall level of Asian football; on the other hand, Australia is a huge market, and the economy is relatively large, and the economy is an indispensable element of football." ”

In fact, what Hamann did not mention, but the key behind the matter, is the benefits that the AFC will get in the allocation of World Cup qualifiers after the introduction of Australia, the Australian Football Federation, which was formerly the Australian Football Federation, only half of the World Cup qualifiers, which makes the strongest Australian team in Oceania have not finally qualified for the last three World Cup qualifiers. But if Australia joins the AFC, the strength of the AFC will undoubtedly increase, and the weight of the FIFA voice will be heavier, it is conceivable that the half of Oceania will fall into the hands of the AFC, so that the AFC World Cup qualifiers can reach 5. In addition, Australia's accession to the AFC means that the Asian Cup, the AFC Champions Cup, these Asian competitions will also have Australian teams to participate, and this will undoubtedly be more helpful to the AFC's marketing.

Analysed from these two aspects, the AFC has almost no reason to give up on the Australians.

In 2oo5, the Australian Football Association officially applied to the Oceania Football Confederation and FIFA to join the AFC from the Oceania Football Confederation. On March 23, the Asian region unanimously decided to invite Australia into the zone, on April 17, the Oceania Football Confederation recognized Australia's request, and on June 3o, FIFA allowed Australia to join the AFC. On 1 January 2oo6, Australia officially became the 46th member of the AFC and will be able to participate in the Asian Cup qualifiers to be held in February 2oo6.

However, before joining the AFC, Australia's golden generation players defeated South American powerhouse Uruguay in the play-offs to reach the World Cup in Germany, and entered the World Cup finals for the first time in 32 years. Moreover, this time they did not occupy the Asian spot. However, in the subsequent 2o1o World Cup, Australia easily won the World Cup ticket by virtue of its absolute physical advantage over Asian teams.

However, after successfully making it to the AFC, Australia was not able to immediately become a bully in the Asian Cup. The 2oo7 Asian Cup was Australia's second appearance, and the ambitious Australia claimed to win the championship, only to be eliminated by Japan on penalties just after qualifying from the group stage. Not only that, but the Australian women's football team even failed to qualify in the qualifiers because they were assigned to the East Asian zone in the World Cup qualifiers and had to meet strong teams such as Japan and China.

Australia wants to pick up soft persimmons, and now they plan to apply to join the Southeast Asia zone. If the Australian Football Association becomes the 12th member of the Southeast Asian Football Association, then their opponents in some continental competitions will change from China, Japan and South Korea to Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Some people want to enter Asia, and some people want to get out of Asia. Today, there is no more powerful football association in the world than UEFA, which has expanded from 25 member associations to 54 member associations over the decades, including associations in Asia or trans-Eurasia such as Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Kazakhstan.

Turkey was the first Asian team to taste the sweetness of leaving Asia and joining Europe. Before 1993, the Turkish Football Association was affiliated with the AFC, but in order to improve the level of football in the country, Turkey resolutely chose to leave Asia and enter Europe. Although Turkey occupies only 3% of the country's land area in Europe, UEFA is still happy to accept it. Turkey has recruited a large number of high-level foreign coaches and players from the big 6 in Europe to enrich the domestic league, and at the same time continuously sent excellent players to the top five European leagues, relying on this strategy, Turkey has become a dark horse in the 2oo2 World Cup, and won the third place.

The Kazakhstan Football Association was founded in 1991, joined the AFC in 1993, and participated in the top 10 of the World Cup qualifiers in 1997, and even drew with Japan at home and beat the United Arab Emirates. But soon, Kazakhstan looked down on Asia, which had a low level of football, and with 12% of its territory in Europe, it defected to UEFA in 2oo1. Today's Kazakh football has made great progress, and some teams have even shown their faces in the Champions League and Europa League.

Therefore, the geographical division in football is different from the real geographical division, and it is not possible to look at the football map with geographical common sense.

In the quarter-finals between Australia and Iraq, the two sides played 0-0 over the course of 90 minutes and the match went to extra time.

In the twenty-sixth minute of extra time, in the one hundred and sixteenth minute of the game, Australia's veteran striker Viduka scored with a header, 1-0!

It was also the final score of the game, with Australia knocking out last year's champions Iraq by one goal.

"Semi-final opponent: Australia!" This is the headline of many important pages of Chinese media the next day, with the results of the match between Australia and Iraq coming out, the opponent of the Chinese team in the semi-finals of this Asian Cup has also been determined, Australia!

For this result, in fact, it is not what the head coach of the Chinese team, Gao Hongbo, wants to see, if he chooses between Australia and Iraq, he is willing to choose Iraq.

Although Iraq is the defending champion, however, the strength of Iraq in this Asian Cup has decreased a lot compared with the past, and in the last Asian Cup, Iraq was able to win the championship in the end, which is a big upset, and the real strength of this team has not really reached the level of the Asian champion.

Australia is not, although in the knockout round of the last Asian Cup was eliminated by the Japanese team, but this is not the real strength of the Australian team, Australia has participated in the 2oo6 Germany World Cup and the 2o1o South Africa World Cup in a row, they are easy to qualify from the World Cup Asian qualifiers, and they are also performing well in the World Cup, this is a real strong team.

A number of Australian internationals play in England, and the team is arguably made up of half of the main players in England.

Australia has a physical advantage, and their technical and tactical level is relatively high, both physically and technically, this team is relatively good.

Suffice it to say that when it comes to strength, in Asia, Australia and Japan are the two top teams, and the other teams are inferior.

Given that the opponent is Australia, the Chinese team has also begun to prepare intensively, and they obviously know that this opponent will be the strongest opponent they have faced since the start of the Asian Cup.

However, during this day's training, an accident happened.

Yang Fan fell to the ground in a scramble during training, and after he got up, he took two steps, frowned, and then sat on the ground again......

Gao Hongbo, the head coach of the Chinese team on the sidelines, saw this scene and sighed in his heart.

The team doctor has rushed into the field.

Subsequently, Yang Fan slowly left the field with the support of the team doctor......

The accident disrupted the training of the Chinese team, and in the subsequent training, the players were a little absent-minded, apparently they were all worried about the situation of captain Yang Fan.

Yang Fan sat on the chair and looked at the ceiling, he had just been inspected, and he was now waiting for the results of the inspection. He's in a bad mood and it would be a big blow to him if he missed the semi-finals because of an injury.

"There's good news and there's bad news, which one do you want to hear first?" said Pei Wei, a medical expert on the Chinese team.

"Bad news. Yang Fan said.

"You had some ankle injuries from the previous scramble. ”

Yang Fan heard Pei Wei say this, he was not too surprised, his body knew by himself, although the previous scramble was not intense, but he immediately felt discomfort, and he took the initiative to stop training, this is an experienced professional player's understanding and protection of his body. However, Yang Fan himself felt that there should be no problem, and he only terminated the training out of prudence.

"The good news?"

"It's not a big problem, I'm going to be able to play in the final. Pei Wei said.

Final?!

"What about the semi-finals with Australia?" Yang Fan immediately keenly grasped the crux of the matter.

"Semi-finals-" Pei Wei paused, "If you can recover, it's not impossible to play, and then it depends on the results of the examination." ”

Yang Fan's eyes widened, "I must play against Australia." He didn't say this to Pei Wei, but to head coach Gao Hongbo.

Gao Hongbo smiled bitterly, Yang Fan must play in the semifinals, why doesn't he Gao Hongbo want Yang Fan to play. Australia is the strongest opponent of the Chinese team in the Asian Cup so far, without Yang Fan, he Gao Hongbo has no bottom in his heart.

Gao Hongbo smiled bitterly: "Yang Fan, I can only say that if the inspection results are good at that time, I will send you to play." ”

"I want to. "Yang Fan 'has to inch in'.

"Everything depends on the test results, and Dr. Pei said okay, just do it. ”

Yang Fan looked at Pei Wei, who nodded, "Of course we all hope that you can catch up with the game." ”

"How sure are you?" Yang Fan asked.

"Optimistic estimates, there is eighty percent hope. Pei Wei said.

Yang Fan breathed a sigh of relief, and then when he saw the smiles on the corners of Gao Hongbo and Pei Wei's mouths, he knew that he was being teased, "Ah, it turns out that you-"

Gao Hongbo laughed.

Yang Fan was a little angry and a little helpless, he didn't expect that the head coach Gao Hong, who had always been unsmiling, would play a prank on himself.

"Director Gao, what is the condition of my injury?" asked Yang Fan, who was concerned about this.

"I'll tell you. Pei Wei cooperated with Gao Hongbo to tease Yang Fan once, and he actually felt quite refreshed, because Yang Fan's previous recovery was simply amazing, which was in the eyes of this medical expert, he was shocked and didn't know what to say, he said with a smile, "There is no problem with playing in the game with Australia, and when the time comes, check it, if there is no problem, it is okay."

"That's good. Yang Fan was completely relieved.

"But-" Gao Hongbo said suddenly, and then he saw Yang Fan looking nervously and said, "Although there is no big deal, but, I mean, we will keep this matter secret for the time being." ”

was nervous by Gao Hongbo's sentence of 'but', Yang Fan was extremely depressed, what happened to the head coach today, and he was shocked when he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Yang Fan understood a little.

"That's right, that's what it means. Gao Hongbo nodded and said, "This time, we will play a psychological war with Australia." ”

This is a trick that Gao Hongbo suddenly came up with after learning that Yang Fan was injured and that there was no major problem in the examination, he wanted to use this incident to play a psychological warfare, and asked Yang Fan to 'cheat the injury' to confuse the Australians.

After coming up with this trick, Gao Hongbo felt reliable, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was a good way to confuse the opponent and disrupt the opponent's deployment......

In the face of the powerful Australia, the head coach of the Chinese team has spent a lot of brain cells, and it can be said that he is trying all his ways and means, just for this semi-final, for the Chinese team to be able to advance to the final round.