In just a few more hours, the 2nd leg of the Azkals’ qualifying match against Mongolia’s Blue Wolves will start.
Should they win based on the aggregate sore (to the football newbies, this is the total of the 1st and 2nd leg match scores), they take a spot in the Qualifying Group Stage. If you’re confused on what the Qualifiers and Pre-Qualifyiers all mean and what it is in relation to the AFC Challenge Cup. Well, I’ll try to clarify it for you…
The AFC, or the Asian Football Federation, has divided its member nations into three groups or categories, which are the:
Developed Associations – these are the best teams or the top of the group. There are 15 nations under this which, of course, includes Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc., some of which have already played for the World Cup.
Developing Associations – these teams are not quite as good yet as the Developed Nations but already have strong football programs in place. Obviously, they’re better than the Emerging Nations but not as good as the Developed Nations yet.
Emerging Nations – these are the teams that still need time to develop their football. And yes, this is where we belong.
So anyway, in 2006, AFC decided to hold a competition for the Emerging Nations which they called the AFC Challenge Cup. For me, this is a pretty good idea as it gives the new teams to try out their skills in an international competition but against teams of their same level. I imagine, a team like Japan or Australia could massacre us in a tournament (although, in football, anything can happen). This tournament (if I’m not mistaken) happens every 2 years.
In the 1st AFC Challenge Cup in 2006, there was still no qualifying stage. This means that the teams were automatically qualified to join the tournament. But in the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup, there is no direct or automatic entry to the tournament. Basically, this means that the teams (even the defending champions and the runners up) need to play and win matches in order to be eligible or qualify to play in the AFC Challenge Cup tournament proper.
What makes this confusing is that there is a pre-qualifying stage in order to reach the qualifiers round, sorta like needing to qualify to the qualifying stage. Confused? So am I. Here’s a simple way of looking at it:
Basically, the 12 highest ranked teams (Bangladesh, North Korea, India, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) plus the four winners from the Play Offs will compete in the Qualifying Group Stage in order to be eligible to play in the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup tournament Proper.
The Azkals, are still trying to win the Play Offs stage in order to play in the Qualifying Group Stage. So we’re still trying to qualify to qualify… I don’t think I’m making sense anymore, hehe...
In today’s game, the Azkals have a pretty good start coming in with two goals from the 1st leg.
For the win:
Blue Wolves
- They should at least score three more goals than the Azkals in order to win
Azkals
- A draw could advance them to the next stage by virtue of away goals
- They can maintain their aggregate lead by not letting the Blue Wolves score more than 3 goals than they do
If that was confusing, maybe this would be easier to understand, below are score combinations showing which team can qualify to the next round.
Blue Wolves | Azkals |
0 | 0 |
1 | 0 |
2 | 0 |
3 | 0 |
4 | 0 |
5 | 0 |
1 | 1 |
2 | 1 |
3 | 1 |
4 | 1 |
5 | 1 |
1 | 2 |
2 | 2 |
3 | 2 |
4 | 2 |
5 | 2 |
1 | 3 |
2 | 3 |
3 | 3 |
4 | 3 |
5 | 3 |
1 | 4 |
2 | 4 |
3 | 4 |
4 | 4 |
5 | 4 |
1 | 5 |
2 | 5 |
3 | 5 |
4 | 5 |
5 | 5 |
Highlighted in yellow means that that team will proceed to the Qualifying Group Stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment