What are your thoughts on the format for Asian Football Confederation

[Tmess2]

qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup? Last week, the AFC held its draw for the first two rounds of qualifiers. The qualifiers are set up to work as follows:

The Teams ranked 1-5 get a bye to the 3rd round.

Teams ranked 6-24 were in the "seeded" pot for the draw with the remaining teams being in the "unseeded" pot.

The 1st round is 19 matches (cup home-and-away rules) with one team drawn from each pot. The 1st round to be conducted in October of this year.

After the 1st round is done, the rankings of the 19 winners will be compared. The top 11 will advance to the 3rd round, the other 8 will compete in the 2nd round (again cup home-and away) to be held in November with the 4 winners advancing.

In the 3rd round, the 20 teams will be drawn into 5 groups of 4 for a league play system. The top two in each group will advance to the 4th round.

The 4th round will be 2 groups of 5 -- top 2 advancing. The two 3rd place teams will meet home-and-away for the playoff spot against the winner of the OFC qualifiers.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

fair enough system

[rizwano]

i hate the format. singapore has to win against palestein to join the powerhouses in the next format

[iicyflame]

sorry i dont watch asian soccer

[E C]

The only thing I don't like is the bye for the top 5 ranked teams. They should have to prove their worth like all the other teams.

[andygurl_RooneyRox]

Its a lot of matches for unseeded teams to play through to advance. Its the rankings of the top 5 that bother me. I'm Australian and frankly we were well below par at the Asia Cup and I don't think deserving of the ranking we got by a long shot. I guess on the other hand it gives the teams that are expected to be there more of a chance. But a bye to the third round is very generous all the same. Not much we can do though, they make the rules and we just have to go with it.