Japan and North Korea go in search of crucial home victories tomorrow to boost their World Cup final hopes, while heavyweights Iran and Saudi Arabia meet in a must-win match in Tehran.
The Japanese, who trail Australia by two points after four games in Asian qualifying Group A, want to make the most of home advantage against Bahrain to ramp up the pressure on the Socceroos, who play Uzbekistan on Wednesday.
In tomorrow’s other Group A game, the Uzbekis, who have just one point so far, host Qatar, who have four points.
Equally critical are the matches in Group B, where North Korea lag South Korea by a point. They play basement team United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Pyongyang before traveling to Seoul to take on their southern neighbors next week.
With South Korea on eight points, the North on seven, Iran on six and the Saudis on four, the outcome of this next round of matches could have far-reaching consequences, with just the top two from each group qualifying.
The third-placed teams play off, with the winner facing New Zealand to claim the fifth slot available for South Africa in 2010.
Saudi Arabia have made the last four World Cup finals, but are in danger of missing out on a fifth with a daunting task ahead in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium against Ali Daei’s Iran.
They will be without 2007 Asian Player of the Year Yasser Al Qahtani after the striker was suspended for failing to turn up at their training camp on Tuesday.
It is a big setback for coach Jorge Peseiro, whose team could only manage a goalless draw in Riyadh against Iraq in a friendly last weekend.
A trip to Pyongyang and the Kim Il-sung Stadium is never easy, but despite having just one point from four matches, the UAE refuse to abandon their dreams of reaching the finals.
But they know they must beat North Korea to stay alive.
“The task is difficult, but not impossible,” said UAE FA official Mohammad Mattar Ghorab, whose team has been preparing for their trip in Beijing. “We have complete confidence and faith in our players, and their capabilities to achieve positive results.”
Japan are well placed behind Australia, but coach Takeshi Okada, who has called up his big-name European stars led by Celtic’s Shunsuke Nakamura, warned that Bahrain will be no pushovers.
“I think Bahrain are a tough match-up for any team, not just us,” he said ahead of the match in Saitama.
The last time the two teams met was during qualification for the 2011 Asian Cup in January. Then, for the second time in the space of 12 months, Japan lost.
Tomorrow’s other match sees Uzbekistan desperate to claim all three points at home to Qatar before they make the trek to Australia next week to face Pim Verbeek’s men in Sydney.
Coach Mirdjalal Kasimov has named three new caps in his provisional squad, including midfielder Stanislav Andreev, goalkeeper Michael Naumov and defender Artyom Filiposyan.
In-form striker Anvarjon Soliev, as well as Islom Inomov and Ulugbek Bakaev, have all been recalled.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier