Asian Football

Will be pressure on him from the start though!!

Vitor Pereira gone from SIPG and replaced by Ivan Leko. Pereira will definitely be after a high profile job in Europe. 

He's got a good agent so I wouldn't necessarily say he was the favourite for Everton job!

It's hard to fathom how things have gotten that bad. 

Money is gone from the game there now too, so players coming through now won't have much of a hope. 

Vietnam did run both Japan and Saudi Arabia quite close too, so probably not as bad but I agree China should be beating them.

Australia dropped points to Oman today too which makes their task of automatic qualification tough

Saudis play China next time out only needing a point to qualify, Australia play Japan needing to beat them to draw level, they'll then need to match Japan's result at home to Vietnam away to the Saudis.

I still think whichever team in Group B should have enough to get through to the Intercontinental playoffs though as Saudis, Japan and Australia should be capable of beating one of UAE/Lebanon/Iraq* in the Asian Playoff

*Iraq can still qualify but would need other matches to go their way. 

Would they not play the South American 5th place side no? 

The third place teams in group a and b play each other first then play the 5th place South American team.

So the moral of the story is they're fooked anyway 

Colombia or Uruguay will practically have a bye to the finals. 

A single leg tie in Qatar gives them more of a chance unlike poor New Zealand last time out having to deal with the Peruvian airforce. 

I looked up the Stadiums in China and yeah majority are Olympic stadiums