Asia and Oceania. According to FIFA, that was groups 13, 14, and 15. According to FIFA, all that was Asia… and was not. True, outside Europe, Asia was the continent with teams willing to participate, so it appeared fair they should be divided into 2 separate groups. But in the same time there was the thorny problem with Taiwan and Israel, both FIFA members, but boycotted by the other Asian teams and not permitted to play in Asian competitions. Yet, unlike South Africa, Taiwan and Israel were not expelled from FIFA and had to play somewhere. And in the same time Oceania hardly had any countries wanting to play, football there was scarce and rudimentary and the 5th continent had not a designated spot at the finals. Keep them separate or lumped them into Asia? The solution was tentative and weird one: the Oceanic Group 15 was somewhat lumped into Asia and yet separate. Half of the participants were clearly Asian teams, but the group stayed apart and the winner of it was going to play-off against the second-placed team in the European Group 7. So, proper Asia had 2 spots at the finals, reserved for the winners of Group 13 and group 14. Apart of the two proper Oceanic teams, 29 Asian teams entered and after Israel and Taiwan were moved to Group 15, 27 played or at least wanted to play at first. They were split into Middle Eastern and Far Eastern groups, vaguely, on geographical principle. Each division had its own complicated structure, going through preliminary eliminations, subgroups, and final group, the winner of which qualified to the finals. Unlike CONCACAF, here not just distances and shortage of money were the obstacles: there were political tensions between countries, wars and civil wars. Lebanon withdrew after playing 4 games and its results were consequently stripped. Oman withdrew without playing any games. Iran withdrew after seeding, due to the war with Iraq. Perhaps the possibility to face at one point team Iraq was too much to handle. On the other hand, Iraq had no such scruples and played, but because of the war they played all their games away from home, ‘hosting’ games in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India. And under the circumstances, Iraq performed amazingly well, going all the way to the Group 13 final. There they met Syria.
The first match was in Damascus and Iraq managed a 0-0 tie. The second leg they ‘hosted’ in Saudi Arabia and won 3-1. Both legs were given to European referees – like in Africa, the local stuff was officially considered somewhat not good enough for such important games, but the real reason was deep mistrust in both teams about the fairness of Asian referees – they could be bribed by the opponent, or follow some political instructions.
A lot had been said about the methods used by Saddam Hussain to achieve his rather political goal, but even so the Iraqi success cannot be denied: it was homeless team, worried about friends and relatives in times of war and often bullied by powerful men in its own government. Even if opposition on the field consisted of mediocre teams and worse, the Iraqi team was heroic. One can only wonder what could have happened if they had to face Iran at some point, but that was academic – Iran withdrew without playing a single match. Even the suspect meetings with Lebanon quickly seized to be a problem: Iraq and Lebanon met twice in three days, both games were played in Kuwait and both ended 6-0 Iraq, but after that Lebanon withdrew and the results were striped from records. What mattered was that Iraq reached the world cup finals pretty much against the odds and made Saddam Hussain happy.
Group 14. The far east had fewer tensions than the Western Asia and they were somewhat avoided either by chance or design: North and South Korea were not in the same subgroup and Taiwan was banished to Oceania. Pakistan did not enter the qualifications, like many other countries, so there were no frictions with India and, as a whole, this group was perhaps the most orderly and normal than Africa, CONCACAF, and the Western part of Asia. Teams were divided into 4 subgroups at first and the winners moved ahead to direct eliminations in the second and third round – semifinals and final. China vs Brunei for some reason was played on neutral grounds – in Hong Kong and Macao. Currently, South Korea and Japan were the better teams, both countries at the beginning of their programs for converting into well organized professional football, boosted by the successful performance in Europe of few stars of which the Koreans were more recent, especially Cha Bum-kun. It looked like that Japan and South Korea will compete for the spot at the finals and the expectation was fulfilled. Both teams sailed untroubled to the final – South Korea lost only 1 match, 0-1 to Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur in Subgroup 1. Japan lost only a point after 0-0 tie in Phenian against North Korea. In the second round Japan eliminated Hong Kong 3-0 and 2-1, and South Korea eliminated Indonesia 2-0 and 4-1.
The final proved one thing – South Korea was ahead of Japan in its development. One can look at the European sensations and somewhat see that: Okudera belonged to the late 1970s and already faded away. Cha Bum-kun was at the top of his game and fame around 1985. South Korea played at the 1982 World Cup finals, but Japan did not reach finals yet. And it was not to be this time either – South Korea won the first leg in Kobe 2-1 and then prevailed again at home – 1-0 in Seoul.
This was the squad South Korea used in 1985 and the star Cha Bum-kun is absent. Looked like he did not play against Japan and if that is true, the reason was the timing: the final was played in October and November, when the West German season was in full force and most likely he was not released to play for the national team of his country. But if he did not play, it would be only a good argument for the development of the South Korean football – even without their key star, they good enough team to overcome the other most ambitious and developed team in the Far East. Well done and well deserved victory and South Korea was going to make her second appearance at the World Cup finals, an Asian record.
Group 15. Oceania. A group of only 4 teams, 2 of them allotted there just because they were pariahs with no proper place. But three of the four teams already played at world cup finals – Israel in 1970, Australia in 1974, and New Zealand in 1982. Taiwan was more for the learning experience and nothing more than that – as a whole, the teams were weak, but Taiwan was far weaker than the rest and entertained no ambitions or hopes. Distances were great – this was perhaps the group having the biggest travel problems and Taiwan, poorer than the others, decided to play away games – flying to whichever country, playing both legs against them on their turf in few days, and going home. They lost all matches with astonishing goal-difference: 1-36! So, it was getting 4 points from Taiwan and scoring as many as possible goals against them and then going to real fight with the other 2 opponents. The three teams were similar and more or less equal – quite weak and depending on immigrant players. Australia had the best options – it attracted constant flow of Europeans, both Eastern European and British, who started playing football in highly developed countries, mostly England, Scotland, and Yugoslavia. Both Australia and New Zealand had limited local choices, for rugby was the number one sport. Israel depended mostly on Jewish settlers, so there options were weak and few. Australia was best suited for advancement and they did not disappoint.
1.AUS> 6 10 4 2 0 20- 2
2.ISR 6 7 3 1 2 17- 6
3.NZE 6 7 3 1 2 13- 7
4.TAI 6 0 0 0 6 1-36
The decisive games were early in the schedule: Australia tied 0-0 New Zealand at their home and then went to beat Israel in Tel-Aviv 2-1.
Israel lost yet another qualification – the squad tells why in some way, but also suggest hope for the future: Avi Cohen was already known as a Liverpool player and Ohana was making his way in Europe, although he became respected player a few years later. These two scored 3 goals each, Ohana in one match, Cohen in three. In a way, it was a bit stronger team than New Zealand: Israel had two good European based players, New Zealand had only Winston Rufer. In another Asian group, Israel was the likeliest winner, but here it was tougher and Israel finished second.
Australia did its best and won the group with confidence, but there was next round – to a point, it was convenient opponent: Scotland, the runner-up in the European Group 7. More or less familiar opponent, playing familiar kind of football, for Australia was heavily influenced by British football from both immigrant players and coaches. But she was convenient opponent for Scotland for the same reasons and the Scots, even not so great at the moment, were still much stronger team. The picture above is one of Australian formations fielded against Scotland. They played heartily, but lost. It was quite honourable exit – 0-0 in Melbourne and 0-2 in Glasgow, but there was no second world cup finals for the ‘soccerroos’, not yet. They had to wait many more years. And the players of this squad remain anonymous because of elimination – how good or bad they were, or could have been? Who knows… Kosmina scored 5 goals in Group 15, Odzakov – 3 goals.