Iran on brink of booking Asian Cup spot

SINGAPORE,  (Reuters) – Iran can book their place at  the 2011 Asian Cup finals, ease the pressure on coach Afshin  Ghotbi and give Bryan Robson’s Thailand a boost with a win over  Singapore tomorrow.

Ghotbi was ridiculed by local media in November after the  three-times Asian champions lost 1-0 to Jordan and a defeat in  Singapore in tomorrow’s Group E match would further fuel the  calls for his departure.

Iran top the group on seven points from four matches, one  ahead of Singapore followed by Thailand (5) and Jordan (4) with  the top two sides from each group qualifying for the finals in  Qatar.

Ghotbi received further criticism last week when his Team  Melli finished last in a four-team invitational tournament in  Qatar, losing to the hosts and Mali but finishing with a win  over North Korea in their final match on Saturday.

“I am happy we beat the tournament champions North Korea in  our last match,” Ghotbi told www.mehrnews.com. “Although we did  not get satisfying results in the Qatar tournament we made good  assessments of our players’ capabilities.”

Robson’s Thailand face a must-win game in their penultimate  match at home to Jordan tomorrow.

Thailand slumped to a surprise 1-0 home defeat by Singapore in  December only four days after beating their Southeast Asian  rivals 3-1 away, leaving qualification out of their hands.

Robson then followed that result by coaching the under-23  side to a surprise first round exit in the South East Asian  Games last month.

“We slipped up, but the players know how important this  game is and they’ve been working really hard,” the former  England captain told Reuters.    “It is a must win game but the pressure’s not on us any more  than the other three teams. They’ve had bad results when they  really didn’t want to have bad results.”

ASIAN HEAVYWEIGHTS
With the games not falling on an official FIFA  international match date, Asian heavyweights Australia and  Japan have been robbed of most of their European-based players  for their away matches.

Japan need just a point in Yemen tomorrow to clinch  qualification from Group A and coach Takeshi Okada has given 13  players their first call-ups to the squad for the match.

Bahrain can also qualify from Group A if they beat Hong  Kong and Yemen fail to beat Japan.

Australia face a much trickier task away to Group B leaders  Kuwait, who stunned the Socceroos with a 1-0 win in Canberra  last year.

The teams are level on seven points from four matches and  both can qualify tomorrow depending on the result of the  other group match between Indonesia and Oman in Jakarta.

In Group D, China can join Syria in qualifying if they beat  the West Asian side in Hangzhou.

“We will concentrate on attack in training over the next  few days. We’ve got to beat Syria,” team manager Du Wei told  yesterday’s Titan Sports newspaper.