At the Qatar World Cup, the Asian Football Confederation had three teams advance from the group stage, the most ever. However, considering that Australia is part of the Asian Football Confederation, but not an Asian team, only Japan and South Korea are qualified if it comes to Asian teams. Even so, this is still the highest number of Asian teams to qualify, tied with 2002 and 2010. It also shows that in the World Cup’s nearly century-long history, only a handful of Asian teams have qualified for the group stage.
So, at least, meeting an Asian team in the knockout round of the World Cup is not a particularly bad thing. For most of the second-tier teams in world football, the knock-out matches against Asian teams, the possibility of passing is very large. This is Serie A statistics. That’s not bad considering most Asian teams make it past the first knockout round. (Barring extreme cases like South Korea in 2002, the vast majority of Asian teams that qualify for the World Cup end up in the round of 16. In 1966, North Korea finished in the round of eight, but now in the round of 16), so these teams, after knocking out Asian teams, will surely finish just as well.
It just so happens that in World Cup history, the teams that beat Asian teams in the knockout rounds have ended up with a highly consistent pattern, with the exception of a few cases, such teams have finished third, or third.
Let’s take a look.
The first Asian team to advance from a World Cup group was North Korea in 1966. In the last eight, Korea lost to Eusebio’s Portugal 3:5, the end of their tour of the dark horse. However, Portugal were the bigger dark horse in that World Cup, and they finished third.
In the 1994 World Cup, Saudi Arabia became only the second Asian team ever to qualify from its group. After reaching the round of 16, Saudi Arabia lost 3-1 to Sweden. Sweden isn’t really one of Europe’s top teams, but they beat Saudi Arabia, knocked out Romania, and went on to the semi-finals before being beaten by Brazil. Sweden finished third after beating Bulgaria 4-0 in the third place final.
Then there’s the ’02 World Cup. Japan and South Korea have both made breakthroughs with home advantage. Japan advanced to the final round and were defeated by Turkey. Turkey finished third in that World Cup. As for South Korea, they were controversially beaten by Germany to reach the final four and had to settle for third place. In the third and fourth place, they were beaten by Turkey.
In the 2018 World Cup, only Japan reached the round of 16 in Asia, and Belgium, who eliminated them, finished third. In the World Cup of 22, Japan reached the round of 16 before being eliminated by Croatia. What was Croatia’s final result? Yeah, third place.
Of course, Korea in World Cup 22, Japan and South Korea in World Cup 10, do not fit the situation discussed today. But it’s negligible compared to the classic examples above. Uruguay, which eliminated South Korea in 2010, also made it to the semifinals, only to lose to Germany in the third place.
This coincidence can be interpreted in two ways. From the perspective of Asian teams, the teams that eliminated them are not strictly the top traditional strong teams. No matter Portugal in 66, Sweden in 94, Turkey in 02, Belgium in 18, Croatia in 22, they all lack first-class heritage, at least compared with Germany, France, Italy, Brazil and other teams we are familiar with. Thus, Asian football still need to work hard ah, the World Cup, do not have a super team, only need a second-rate team, can stop their progress.
In terms of the teams that beat them, knocking out Asian teams might not really matter. After all, they weren’t so dominant against Asian teams. So when such teams reach the last four, the semi-finals become a handicap – perhaps third place is a very good result for them.
Given time, it is not known that any Asian team will personally finish third in the World Cup. Let’s wait and see.