Bahrain Fall to New Zealand

New Zealand have booked their spot in South Africa with a 1-0 home victory over Bahrain in Wellington earlier this evening. The All Whites will make just their second appearance at a FIFA World Cup finals tournament and their first since 1982. A cauldron of more than 35,000 Kiwis carried the home side through a memorable and famous night which will doubtless go down in New Zealand football history as one of the greatest. For the visitors, however, it was once again a ticket to the World Cup lost. Bahrain failed at exactly the same stage four years ago to Dwight Yorke's Trinidad and Tobago outfit, and to be honest, they can only blame themselves for failing to dispatch the Oceania group winners.

The interesting thing about this result is the political ramifications it may have for Australia within the AFC and the A-League's New Zealand-based team Wellington Phoenix. Rumblings from the AFC about Australia developing talent for rival confederations may become more vociferous in the weeks ahead.

To be honest though, I think this is a good opportunity for the AFC and Bahrain to examine their own footballing deficiencies. Any 5th placed Asian national team should be battle-hardened and used to pressure matches. New Zealand does not have the luxury of a long qualifying campaign and, with all due respect, fields a squad with some semi-professional players from the local New Zealand Football Championship. Over the course of the two legs, Bahrain missed a handful of gilt-edged chances to score and even a penalty. So is the A-League's acceptance of Wellington Phoenix and subsequent development of New Zealand national team players 100% to blame for Bahrain's failure? No, of course not, but blaming Australia is the easy way out.

Much to the ire of some powerbrokers within Asia, there will be no sides from West Asia at South Africa. A powershift to the East has occurred. Traditional powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran both failed during their respective qualifying campaigns in Asia, whilst Bahrain failed to put away New Zealand in their two matches. Qatar and UAE picked up just 7 points between them in the Fourth Round of AFC World Cup qualifying matches and finished 4th and 5th respectively in their groups.

Some will say, in more than unsavoury terms, that only three nations are representing Asia in South Africa - Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. They will say that Australia does not belong in Asia, and will predictably point to Australia's domestic assistance to New Zealand that we are undermining the confederation. For almost four years some bloggers and keyboard warriors have bad-mouthed Australia's status as an Asian football nation. Apparently a majority caucasian population disqualifies us. Or the fact that we speak English. Never mind that English is an official language in India, the Philippines, and Singapore though.

Australia will proudly represent the AFC at South Africa in 2010. We will do our best to make Asian football proud and to do justice to the rich history of football in this continent. Those that choose to question Australia's commitment to Asian football and development of the Wellington Phoenix, however, need to understand the pecularities of our social, political, economic, and footballing environments and the market in which the A-League operates.