2010 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC Fourth Round

The AFC Fourth Round of 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification was decided by a random draw conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 27 June 2008. The round commenced on 6 September 2008, and finished on 17 June 2009.

The top two countries in each group at the end of the stage qualified directly to the World Cup Finals in South Africa, with the two third-placed countries advancing to the AFC play-off.

Format

The 10 teams (2 teams from each group in the third round) were divided into four pots for the draw, three containing two teams and one containing four. The seeding for the fourth round was based on that used in the third round draw, but Saudi Arabia and Japan (seeded equal 4th in that draw) were separated by a random selection held at the start of the fourth round draw. The pots were as follows:

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Australia  South Korea	Iran  Japan	Saudi Arabia  Bahrain	Uzbekistan  North Korea  United Arab Emirates  Qatar

The 10 teams were split into two groups of five teams each - each containing one team from each of Pots 1, 2 and 3, as well as 2 teams from Pot 4.

The top two teams in each group qualified for the World Cup Finals, with the two third-placed sides advancing to a playoff. All teams played home and away against each of the other four teams in the group.

Group A

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Australia 8 6 2 0 12 1 +11 20  Japan 8 4 3 1 11 6 +5 15  Bahrain 8 3 1 4 6 8 −2 10  Qatar 8 1 3 4 5 14 −9 6  Uzbekistan 8 1 1 6 5 10 −5 4

Australia  – 2 – 0 2 – 1 4 – 0 2 – 0 Bahrain  0 – 1 – 2 – 3 1 – 0 1 – 0 Japan  0 – 0 1 – 0 – 1 – 1 1 – 1 Qatar  0 – 0 1 – 1 0 – 3 – 3 – 0 Uzbekistan  0 – 1 0 – 1 0 – 1 4 – 0 –

• Australia and Japan qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• Bahrain advanced to the AFC play-off.

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Group B

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  South Korea 8 4 4 0 12 4 +8 16  North Korea 8 3 3 2 7 5 +2 12  Saudi Arabia 8 3 3 2 8 8 0 12  Iran 8 2 5 1 8 7 +1 11  United Arab Emirates 8 0 1 7 6 17 −11 1

Iran  – 2 – 1 1 – 1 1 – 2 1 – 0 North Korea  0 – 0 – 1 – 1 1 – 0 2 – 0 South Korea  1 – 1 1 – 0 – 0 – 0 4 – 1 Saudi Arabia  1 – 1 0 – 0 0 – 2 – 3 – 2 United Arab Emirates  1 – 1 1 – 2 0 – 2 1 – 2 –

• South Korea and North Korea qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• Saudi Arabia advanced to the AFC play-off.

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Goalscorers

As of 17 June, there have been 81 goals scored in 40 games, for an average of 2.03 goals per game.

3 goals

Tim Cahill Javad Nekounam

Lee Keun-Ho Park Ji-Sung

Farhod Tadjiyev

2 goals

Brett Emerton Joshua Kennedy Shunsuke Nakamura Keiji Tamada

Marcus Tulio Tanaka Mun In-Guk Ki Sung-Yueng Park Chu-Young

Naif Hazazi Abdoh Otaif Masoud Shojaei Mahmood Abdulrahman

1 goal

Mark Bresciano David Carney Scott Chipperfield Harry Kewell Mile Sterjovski Faouzi Mubarak Aaish Abdulla Baba Fatadi Salman Isa Karim Bagheri Ali Karimi Mehdi Mahdavikia Yasuhito Endō Kengo Nakamura

Shinji Okazaki Tatsuya Tanaka An Chol-Hyok Choe Kum-Chol Hong Yong-Jo Jong Tae-Se Pak Nam-Chol Kim Chi-Woo Kwak Tae-Hwi Ali Afif Talal Al-Bloushi Magid Mohamed Majdi Siddiq

Sebastián Soria Ahmed Al-Fraidi Saad Al-Harthi Osama Al-Muwallad Ismail Al Hammadi Mohammed Al Shehhi Abdulrahim Jumaa Subait Khater Ismail Matar Bashir Saeed Maksim Shatskikh Anvarjon Soliev

Own goals

Marcus Tulio Tanaka (for Bahrain)

Fares Juma (for Saudi Arabia)

Ahmed Ali Al Binali (for Japan)

Notes

Several Iranian players started their away match against South Korea wearing green armbands or wristbands, a symbol of protest at the outcome of the Iranian presidential election.^[2] Most removed them at half-time. The newspaper Iran reported that Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdavikia, Hosein Kaebi, and Vahid Hashemian had received life bans from the Iranian FA for the gesture.^[3] However, the Iranian FA denied this claim in a response to FIFA's inquiry saying that "the comments in foreign media are nothing but lies and a mischievous act."^[4] The Iran national team head coach Afshin Ghotbi also confirmed that it was a rumour and Iranian FA "has not taken any official stand on this issue."^[5]

References

External links

2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers AFC First round Second round Third round Fourth round Fifth round (play-off for 5th place) CAF First round Second round Third round CONCACAF First round Second round Third round Fourth round CONMEBOL Group round OFC First round (South Pacific Games) Second round (OFC Nations Cup) UEFA First round Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Group 8 Group 9 Second round (play-offs) Play-offs AFC v OFC CONCACAF v CONMEBOL