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    China vs Australia

    Mark Schwarzer saved an 88th minute penalty to allow Australia to hang on to a 0-0 draw with China in their World Cup qualifier in Kunming.

    Australia, who were playing with virtually no strikers, had very few chances to score; but China looked tentative and disjointed... in fact quite crap, really.

    This match could mark the end of Harry Kewell... he pulled up injured after Australia's 0-0 draw with Singapore a few days ago, and was unable to take the field against China. The self-delusional prat actually declared, on a TV interview a few weeks ago, "I am not injury prone...."!!

    #2
    China vs Australia

    Remarkable result in the other game: Qatar 2 Iraq 0. We already know Qatar are hopeless, we've just seen that China are crap. Iraq must be shit as well. Surely, Australia can't miss out now.

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      #3
      China vs Australia

      Do the winners of the group automatically qualify for the finals or do they progress to another group stage?

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        #4
        China vs Australia

        Japan losing to Bahrein was another surprise, but the real shock for me was Saudi Arabia losing 3-0 to Uzbekistan.

        Two teams from each group go to the next round.

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          #5
          China vs Australia

          Iran don't look in very good shape having drawn their first two matches. However their group looks weak in comparison to the others.

          Uzbekistan always seem to be on the edge of doing something in Asia but never quite make it. Does anyone know if Uzbekistan used to supply any players for the Soviet national side? They seem by far the strongest of the "Asian ex-Soviet states".

          The last four games of this group stage are all played in June. Quite a hectic way to complete this stage of qualifying.

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            #6
            China vs Australia

            I'm always slightly taken aback whenever I see that Harry Kewell is playing. I thought he had just sort of naturally eroded away to nothing over time. Like The Sphinx's hooter.

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              #7
              China vs Australia

              mnb098mnb wrote:
              Does anyone know if Uzbekistan used to supply any players for the Soviet national side? They seem by far the strongest of the "Asian ex-Soviet states".
              A couple of Uzbeks played for the USSR in the 1970s when Pakhtakor Tashkent were doing well in the Soviet Supreme League. Andrei Pyatnitsky, a Russian who came from Uzbekistan, lined out for Russia in the finals of USA 94.

              Uzbekistan won the Asian Cup (regional equivalent of the European Championships) in 1995 so they do have some pedigree, and of course more recently there was the refereeing scandal in their WC qualifier against Bahrain. Their best player of recent times has been the now-retired Mirjalol Kasimov, who used to play for Alania Vladikavkaz and once scored against Liverpool in the UEFA Cup in 1995, although to be honest it was more like an own goal by David James.

              The biggest name in the current squad is Maksim Shatskikh, who has scored a few goals in the Champions League for Dynamo Kiev in his time.

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                #8
                China vs Australia

                Was that an off the top of your head type of reply or did you google?

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                  #9
                  China vs Australia

                  I needed to check if Kasimov was still playing, and I tried to find the names of the 1970s players but couldn't. I'm pretty sure one of them was called Mikhail An.

                  I am actually sad enough to carry a fair bit of this stuff around in my head, yet I could barely tell you what I had for my dinner yesterday.

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                    #10
                    China vs Australia

                    That's pretty impressive.

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                      #11
                      China vs Australia

                      It certainly impresses the chicks, that's for sure!

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                        #12
                        China vs Australia

                        More Uzbek players might have been capped by the USSR had the Pakhtakor squad, including Mikhail An, not been wiped out in a plane crash around 1979. The club were allowed to keep their place in the Soviet league the following season while they rebuilt.

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                          #13
                          China vs Australia

                          From united-front.org

                          In 1949, the Torino team that was dominating Italian football and providing much of the Italian national side was decimated when the plane carrying them back to Turin from a match in Portugal crashed. 31 died, including 18 Torino players.

                          In 1961, 24 players died when the plane carrying the Green Cross team of Santiago, Chile, crashed in the Las Lastimas mountains.

                          In 1969, 19 players and officials of Bolivian side The Strongest died as their plane came down in the Andes.

                          In 1979, 17 members of the Soviet side Pakhtakor Tashkent were killed in a plane crash whilst en route to a league match.

                          In 1987, 43 players, officials' wives and supporters of Alianza Lima lost their lives when their plane crashed into the sea whilst bringing the team home to the Peruvian capital.

                          In 1993, 18 members of the highly rated Zambia international side were killed when their plane crashed into the sea off Gabon as it took the squad to play a World Cup qualifier against Senegal.

                          I knew about the first and last of these disasters but knew nothing of the others.

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                            #14
                            China vs Australia

                            A load of black players from Ajax were killed in the late 1980s when their plane crashed into the sea off Surinam. They were going there to play a friendly.

                            This tragedy is supposed to have been what put Dennis Bergkamp off air travel once and for all.

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                              #15
                              China vs Australia

                              I thought it was a bad experience on a flight during the 1994 World Cup that put Bergkamp off flying once and for all?

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                                #16
                                China vs Australia

                                Yes, it was, as Bergkamp was of course in the Dutch squad for the World Cup in 1994. There was an incident on the flight back home, either excessive turbulence or a bomb scare. When he was playing for Arsenal, before every Arsenal away game in Europe, you could always count on at least one article in the press calling for the club to force him to travel with the rest of the squad, because it was his duty as an employee.

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                                  #17
                                  China vs Australia

                                  A Dutch journalist acted the eejit at Orlando Airport, joking to security staff that there was a bomb in his luggage. The plane got held up for hours as a result.

                                  However, I read an article about Bergkamp a while back which claimed that his terror of flying had its roots in the Ajax/Surinam disaster.

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                                    #18
                                    China vs Australia

                                    Although it was arse-achingly funny to see Holland crash out in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, it's a shame we never got to see how Bergkamp would have coped with that journey- I'm quite charmed by the idea of him travelling to the Far East via the Trans-Siberian railway, or following the route of Phileas Fogg.

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                                      #19
                                      China vs Australia

                                      You Are The Ref wrote:
                                      it was arse-achingly funny to see Holland crash out in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup
                                      Ah yes, one of the crowning moments of the career of Louis "four strikers and no wingers" van Gaal.

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