The Qantas Australian Under 23’s have been drawn alongside Iraq, Uzbekistan and UAE in Group B of the third round of the Asian Qualifiers for the London 2012 Olympic Games men’s football tournament.
The Qantas Australian Under 23-s have been drawn alongside Iraq, Uzbekistan and UAE in Group B of the third round of the Asian Qualifiers for the London 2012 Olympic Games men-s football tournament. The draw took place today at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.
After learning of the draw, Qantas Australian Under 23-s Head Coach Aurelio Vidmar was looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead.
“It-s tough. A challenge. But all the groups are hard so that-s the way it is and now we-ll see how we go,” said Vidmar.
“The first thing we will do is have a look at the DVD-s of the team-s from the last round of qualifiers to start our preparation process.
“As the matches are not on FIFA dates, our team will be heavily weighted with Hyundai A-League players, but we will try our hardest to get overseas-based players released to. We will certainly do our best to get the strongest possible squad for every match.
“In the next week we will also sit down with FFA management and map out our campaign schedule which will include training camps and where we will play our home matches,” concluded Vidmar.
The Qantas Australian Under 23-s are scheduled to play their first match of the round on Wednesday 21 September 2011 with venues and kick-off times to be confirmed for all matches to be confirmed soon.
Asia are allotted 3.5 slots for the London 2012 Olympic Gamers men-s football tournament.
The winner of each group from the third round will automatically progress to next year-s Olympic Games.
The three second-placed teams from the third round will clash in a playoff at a centralised venue from 25 to 29 March, 2012, and the winner of this group will then meet the representatives of CAF (Africa) for a berth at the Olympic Games.
London 2012 Olympic Games - Asian Qualification Third Round - Groups
Group A: Korea Republic, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman
Group B: Australia, Iraq, Uzbekistan, UAE
Group C: Japan, Bahrain, Syria, Malaysia
London 2012 Olympic Games - Asian Qualification Third Round - Match Schedule
Group B
Wednesday, 21 September 2011 - Australia v UAE Wednesday, 21 September 2011 - Uzbekistan v Iraq Wednesday, 23 November 2011 - UAE v Uzbekistan Wednesday, 23 November 2011 - Iraq vAustralia Sunday, 27 November 2011 - UAE v Iraq Sunday, 27 November 2011 - Australia v Uzbekistan Sunday, 5 February 2012 - Iraq v UAE Sunday, 5 February 2012 - Uzbekistan v Australia Wednesday, 22 February 2012 - UAE v Australia Wednesday, 22 February 2012 - Iraq v Uzbekistan Wednesday, 14 March 2012 - Australia v Iraq Wednesday, 14 March 2012 - Uzbekistan v UAE