Aussie Move To Asian Football Sealed

Aussie move to Asian football sealed

Friday Dec 30 17:25 AEDT

There'll be no party and little fanfare when Australian soccer seals its most important off-field success as the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve - officially joining the Asian Football Confederation.

Australia finally jettisons the weakling Oceania Football Confederation on Sunday for Asia - a deal brokered back in March and rubber-stamped mid-year by FIFA.

Instead the celebrations of regular, more meaningful football will be ongoing throughout 2006, starting on Wednesday with the 2007 Asian Cup draw in Kuala Lumpur which kick-starts the Socceroos' Asian invasion.

The Socceroos, whose newcomer status relegates them to the lowest possible pot for the draw of six, four-team groups, will find themselves sharing a group with one of the seeded nations - Asian champion Japan, Iran, China, Bahrain, Uzbekistan or Jordan.

Pot B contains South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar, while United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Singapore and Hong Kong are in Pot C.

Australia will end up grouped with a team from each pot, with the top two teams in each group qualifying for the Asian Cup in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia in July 2007.

The Socceroos play their first qualifier on February 22.

While there will be much focus on the senior Socceroos' first match in Asia, Australia's under-17 team will be the nation's first representative in an Asian competition.

The Joeys compete in the first stage of 2007 world championship qualification in Laos from February 7.

They play the host nation and Indonesia with the winner advancing to the Asian under-17 championship in Singapore in September and a second group stage for the right to qualify as Asia's representative for the world championship finals in South Korea.

Joeys coach Ange Postecoglou admits Australia's underage teams face a more difficult battle to qualify for major tournaments through Asia than Oceania, but is relishing the challenge of coaching the first team to tackle Asian competition.

"At times, we've probably found it too easy to qualify through Oceania and maybe sometimes we've qualified where we weren't really good enough (for a world championship) - we've had a false impression of where we're at," Postecoglou said.

"There's enormous benefits for us. It's harder for us to qualify, sure, but now at least it's a challenge.

"It used to be little attention was paid to us in qualifying because everyone expected us to qualify.

"If we qualify this time, we'll get acknowledged for our achievement."

Australia's under-17s have qualified for the past two world championships, but have been knocked out at the group stage.

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