Champs seeded 12th
Afp, Kuala Lumpur
Iraq may have won the Asian Cup championship last month but they have been seeded a lowly 12th in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers according to Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rankings released Friday. Australia, despite their abject play in the Asian Cup, stayed on top as the number one seed. South Korea, the 2002 World Cup semifinalists, came in second while Saudi Arabia was seeded third ahead of Japan. In the Asian Cup semifinals, the Saudi squad beat Japan 3-2 in the semifinals. Rounding out the top 10 seedings were, in order, Iran, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, North Korea and China at number 10. Seeded fifth, Iran will be among the five top-ranked teams who get a bye from the gruelling first round stages. The draw for round one will be held in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. With the top five being given byes, teams ranked 6-43 are paired by draw and play one home-and-away knockout round. Teams ranked from 6-24 will be placed in Pot A and teams ranked from 25-43 will be placed in Pot B. From 19 teams that progress through this round the lowest eight based on ranking move to round two and the other eleven to round three, the AFC said. In round two, the eight lowest-ranked teams will be paired by draw and play one home-and-away knockout round. Four teams progress to round three. The next round sees 11 qualifiers from round one and four qualifiers from round two joined by five highest-ranked countries. These 20 teams are split into five groups of four. First and second in each group qualify for the next round, the AFC said. The 10 remaining teams are split into two groups of five teams. The top two teams in each of the two groups qualify automatically for the South Africa World Cup in 2010. Teams that finish third in each group play a home-and-away playoff and the team winning that playoff confronts the winner of the Oceania FC qualification in a home and away playoff to get the jackpot spot in the World Cup. The seeding is as follows (The top 12 followed by South Asian nations): 1. Australia
2. South Korea
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Japan
5. Iran
6. Bahrain
7. Uzbekistan
8. Kuwait
9. NorthKorea
10. China
11. Jordan
12. Iraq
27. Maldives
28. India
30. Sri Lanka
33. Bangladesh
35. Pakistan
36. Afghanistan
39. Nepal
41. Bhutan
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