Quote from: Sithara007 on Today at 05:35:25 PM

Quote from: retreat on Today at 06:36:42 AM

Uzbekistan and Jordan qualifying for the 2026 world cup is historic for them, as it is the first time for these two countries to qualify for the world cup. Maybe these two countries are playing mediocre and will also be eliminated quickly, but at least there is a new country from Asia that can qualify for the world cup. As for Japan, Australia, South Korea, and Iran, these are Asian countries that have already qualified for the world cup, so we don't need to talk about them because they are on a different level.

At least Uzbekistan is not mediocre. I have seen the highlights from a few of their qualifier matches, and they look very promising. Technically they are in Central Asia, but a few decades ago Uzbekistan was part of the USSR. And the former Soviet Union always held very high standards in sports. Japan is one of the strongest teams from Asia. But recently they have stagnated quite a bit, perhaps due to the unfavorable demographics. The same can be said about South Korea as well.

It depends what you define as an achievable goal for them, but considering the FIFA ranking, they are right now ranked 57th between South Africa and Saudi Arabia. it is not bad for a small nation, or they are not that small with their population of 35 million, but they are considered rather small in the football business.

Whether there acceptable ranking has to do with their USSR past, I don't know, but it is true that countries from that region put a lot of emphasis on sports. I personally didn't know football is a big thing there.

The FIFA ranking is misleading sometimes I think because when you argue that Uzbekistan is enthusiastic about football and sports, China is as well, but they are only ranked 94th.