The second day of action at the AFC Asian Cup tournament sees the opening matches in Groups A and B concluded on Saturday on a day where we have three fixtures on the card as six more teams get their campaign underway.
We saw the host nation Qatar get off to a good start in their title defence on Friday and on Saturday we will see the likes of Australia, Uzbekistan and China coming to the party to show their own credentials in this event.
Australia vs India (11.30)
The opening match of the day will see an Australia team who went well in the World Cup here 14 or so months ago taking on an India team who will be looking to hang tough with the 2015 champions and get their campaign off to a positive start.
This match is clearly all about Australia. If they play anything like to the level they did at the World Cup they should win this match and win it well but India are led by Igor Stimac who was a decent defender in his own right back in the day and I would imagine he will have his side organised and hard to break down and it remains to be seen whether Australia have the class to break them down and come out on top. You would imagine they would but the longer it goes without them getting on the scoresheet the more the focus will just be on winning rather than covering handicaps and things. I’d like to watch India before I commit to them so I’ll leave this one alone.
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China vs Tajikistan (14.30)
We move back to Group A for the second match of the day where China will look to justify their status as the second seeds in the section when they take on a Tajikistan side who have picked up some decent results in recent times.
If this match was a couple of years ago you would probably assume that China were good things but that might not be the case down with the Chinese Super League no longer all that strong and Tajikistan emerging on the scene. Tajikistan go into this match off the back of an emphatic 6-1 win away to Pakistan in their latest World Cup qualifier and you sense they will fancy the job at hand here. These are two sides I’ll seek to watch before I get too involved in them so I’ll take a watching brief here.
Uzbekistan vs Syria (17.30)
The last game of the day out in Qatar sees us return to Group B where the second and third seeds will battle it out when Uzbekistan take on Syria in a match both might feel the need to win if they want to win the group.
Of course winning the group isn’t necessarily the priority in this competition because so many third placed sides make it into the knockout stage but clearly the further up your section you finish the easier your draw should become later in the tournament. Syria have been a competitive side recently but one of their top scorers, Omar Al Somah, retired from the national team after the World Cup qualifier against Japan at the back end of last year and that feels significant. Uzbekistan have picked up some decent results in the last year or so as I mentioned in my outright preview of the event and their Slovenian coach looks to be getting a good tune out of his charges. I think the favourites will win this one and they could win it with a bit in hand so I like them to cover a one goal Asian line.
Tips
Back Uzbekistan (-1AH) to beat Syria for a 3/10 stake at 1.89 with Bet365
