Silent Lonesome Man

Two matches, no point. This is the scenario of Vietnam after the two fixtures in September. Of course, the majority of Vietnamese supporters feel understandable. Vietnam's two first opponents were Saudi Arabia and Australia, two of Asia's top hegemons. Though some Vietnamese resented the results, believing it was truly unfair and did have a lot of sentiment to dislike refereeing officials. On 7 October, Vietnam will play away from home, to face up China, the giant northern neighbour. China's situation is also no better, if not to say worse: it was slammed by Australia and Japan. The only difference is, Vietnam has a goal while China doesn't have even one. The game is recognised as a "home" game for the Chinese, but in reality, it will be scheduled in the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries that rollout Chinese vaccines by the majority during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sharjah, the upcoming venue, in particular, is a major recipient of Sinovac and Sinopharm&

Guangzhou F.C., once known as Guangzhou Evergrande, bore the namesake of the company that financed and gave the club enormous power in the football (or American word "soccer") world. Now, it is on the verge of dissolution, as the team's owner is in a financial crisis. The Chinese Football Association began an attempt to fix the messes, but it was too late. It was a shocking blow for a country that back in the late 1990s to early 2010s, was among one of Asia's most elite football nations. One of the main reasons that helped China to get such a powerful status was the very large Super League, where Chinese clubs got their backs from powerful business people. Like a high-speed locomotive train, China's rise in economic terms is drawn largely from these conglomerates. Now, the national league is facing a tremendous crisis. Over sixteen clubs from China's top three divisions had already gone. The impact also made its way to the national team: Team Dragon, the nickn

0-3. This was the result in Doha, Qatar after the game between Iraq and Iran. Nobody could imagine Iraq would sit bottom of the group, even though it was still early on track. This came after a goalless holding in Seoul against South Korea, in which the Iraqis succeeded in blocking Son Heung-min and his teammates. This performance yet failed to inspire Iraq to do better against Iran, the game ended in humiliation. If you are an Iraqi citizen now, the f word will be used to say about Iraq's form. Probably most Iraqis. Again and again, Iraq has become like a typical yo-yo national team, something that is difficult to answer considering the team has achieved some glories for a war-torn nation. Now, it is clear that there is a crisis within Iraq, a national team... that has been on the struggling mode, to find out how to play its football. So, how to answer that? Iraq did qualify for a World Cup - 1986 when the edition was hosted by Mexico. Iraq was eliminated, though its elimination i

The world is watching the Chinese conglomerate Evergrande Group, once among one of the most powerful companies in the world and the second biggest in China after Alibaba (owned by Jack Ma). The same company, yes, is now reeling under potential defaults. It is holding an inglorious record of being the most indebted conglomerate in the world, with more than $300 billion in debts. The Chinese government, which is embarking on a major crackdown on major firms to ensure that they would get the lesson about financial regulation - which is recently being imposed by Beijing to control the money influx and borrowings - has suddenly changed the tune and throwing over $14 billion cash to save the company. The current crisis of Evergrande is threatened to turn China into a major moment of another Lehman Brothers, the American company that crashed in 2008 and sparked a widespread economic crisis. The fear is real and Fitch to Moody had decreased the credit rating of the Chinese firm with the risk r

It's just two matchdays so it was too early to decide who can book places in Qatar. Yet the expectation people wanted to see, instead, came out with tons of surprise. One among them is shockingly Japan. The qualifying route for Qatar was initially smooth, the Japanese conquered the second round with no flaws, eight straight wins to reach the third round in a comfortable fashion. There, a wrong impression was created: Japan would go and occupy the no.1 spot in the third round, easily heading for Qatar. However, after just two games, Japan is facing a major danger of not qualifying for the World Cup. This came amidst the way how Japan showed up in the qualification. So, why should Japan's supporters be worried about such a scenario like this? This came when Japan started its campaign in the group containing Oman, Vietnam, Australia, China and Saudi Arabia. Among all of them, Japan was ranked the highest. This created a sentiment that Japan would go to take the first place, with a

Just after hopes about the central government in Canberra to bow to the pressure from football, or in North American English, soccer-loving fans and the FFA, the news arrived with a shocking blow: again, the government and FFA failed to finalise an agreement. That meant October will again see Australia play home away from home: its base in Doha will be again used for the qualification. No one feels more pain than Mathew Leckie, who has to shoulder a huge responsibility as the new captain of the Aussies after the retirement of Mark Milligan, the last member of the Golden Era of the 2000s. It was the pandemic restriction in Down Under that hampered the planning of the Oz for the World Cup in Qatar. During the September perpetration, Australia gathered an exclusive overseas-based squad, with only Rhyan Grant the A-League man on the odd. Australia did perform at its best, winning 3-0 and 1-0 over China and Vietnam, respectively. Yet October promised to be an even harder task for Australia.