Group B, where the Chinese men's football team is located in the round of 12, has such a team. They are not in Asia, but they play in the Asian region. This team is the Kangaroo Army Australia.
Not only the men's football team played in the Asian region, women's football competitions, Australia also participated in this women's Asian Cup (women's World Cup host).
Australia belongs to Australia or Oceania
It is well known that although Australia plays in the Asian region, it is not an Asian country. In the past, people used to refer to Australia as Australia and think of it as a single continent. In fact, this is a common geographical cognitive error.
Australia generally has two meanings, in the narrow sense of Australia refers to the mainland area where the main body of Australia is located, the area of 7.69 million square kilometers, is the world's smallest continent, but also as the standard of continents and islands (the smallest continent is the Australian mainland, the largest island is Greenland). Australia's territory includes not only the bulk of the continent, but also Tasmania in the southeast and the Great Barrier Reef region.
Oceania is the smallest continent in the world, but it encompasses a wider area than Australia. In addition to Australia, it includes New Zealand, the island of New Guinea and many islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is geographically divided into six districts: Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
Australian football was once the hegemon of Oceania
Before joining Asia, Australia played regional events in Oceania. Founded in 1966, Oceania Football Federation is the latest of all continental football federations. The Oceania Football Confederation is not entirely sovereign. For example, Tahiti (Tahiti), which represented Oceania in the 2013 Confederation Cup of Brazil, is not a sovereign state, but an overseas territory of France.
Niue, Tuvalu and Kiribati are relatively special. They are members of the Oceania Federation, but they are not members of the FIFA umbrella. Therefore, although they are sovereign countries, they cannot participate in the competitions below FIFA. Includes world cup Oceania qualifiers.
If Australia does not go, the hegemon of Oceania is undoubtedly Australia. Since the inception of the Confederations Cup, with the exception of New Zealand, which represented Oceania in the 2003 Confederations Cup in France, the rest of the Confederations Cup representing Oceania has been Australia. In the 1997 Confederations Cup, they finished runners-up. In the 2001 Confederations Cup, they beat the football kingdom of Brazil in the third and fourth place finals to finish third.
The level of football in Oceania is relatively low, and Australia, which thrives, was the maker of the tragedy before entering Asia. The tragedies they created were beyond the reach of even the Germans, who frequently created them. In the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup Oceania Qualifier, Australia's match against American Samoa directly set a 31-0 record. It was the biggest disparity between the national teams, and no team had broken that record so far.
Places for the World Cup are in Asia
Although Australia is a bearer in Oceania, because of the low level of football in Oceania, it has won very few seats in Oceania, only 0.5 seats. In other words, even if you are the first place in the Oceania region, you have to compete with other continents for the World Cup promotion.
What is even more memorable is that Oceania has repeatedly drawn south America, which is as strong as a cloud. In other words, it is not impossible to meet South American giants such as Argentina and Brazil. As a result, since the 1974 World Cup in Germany (then in West Germany), Australia has not been able to qualify for the World Cup.
The more bloody plot is not over. In the 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Italy, Israel was kicked out of the Asian zone for political reasons and assigned to Oceania. Israel overwhelmed Australia with great strength and got tickets to the play-offs, but was blocked out of the World Cup by Colombia.
In 1994, the European Zone accepted Israel. Australia is hard to come by. Who knows, the team in the South American play-off is Argentina. Argentina no matter how much it performed in the South American qualifiers, it has absolutely outstanding strength in front of Australia, and it can be said that the skinny camel is bigger than the horse. Australia was also unsurprisingly blocked from the World Cup by Argentina.
In the 1998 play-offs, Australia was also blocked from facing Iran in the Asian zone. In the 2002 World Cup play-offs, Australia was blocked by Uruguay. Australia's last appearance as an Oceania team in the World Cup was at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. As the number one in Oceania at the time, they met Uruguay again.
This time, Australia finally eliminated Uruguay in a penalty shootout to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Do fans remember Huang Jianxiang's passionate commentary in the Italy vs Australia match? He was talking about Schwarzer saving two penalties in the World Cup play-offs, the second leg against Uruguay.
In 2005, Australia applied to withdraw from the Oceania Federation and join the AFC. In January 2006, Australia's application to join the AFC was approved. Since then, Australia has transformed itself into a member of the AFC. The Australian women's soccer team also participates in the Asian region. Later, Australia was included in the Southeast Asia Division and became one of the members of the Southeast Asian region.
Since joining the AFC, the Australian men's team has participated in four Asian Cups in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. At the 2015 Asian Cup held locally, Australia won the championship.
In the 2017 Russian Confederations Cup (the last edition), Australia returned to the Confederations Cup after 12 years. However, unlike 12 years ago, in the 2006 German Confederations Cup, Australia participated as an Oceania champion, this time as an Asian champion (Oceania is New Zealand).
In the World Cup competitions, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Australia qualified as the top 4 in the Asian region. The 2015 Asian Cup and the 2017 Confederations Cup became watershed moments for Australian football. Since then, Australia, because of the departure of a number of golden players such as Cahill and Bresciano, the Australian men's football team has fallen into a talent wither.
At the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Australia played in the play-offs for the first time since playing in the Asian zone. Unlike Oceania and New Zealand, Australia drew Honduras in Central and North America and the Caribbean. On that occasion, Australia crossed the border.
In this World Preliminary Tournament, the Australian men's football team lost points on The Chinese team, the Japanese team, Saudi Arabia and other teams, so that Australia could only rank third in Group B. They also have to compete with the UAE for a ticket to the Intercontinental Play-off. If the semi-finals cannot be won, Australia will simply miss the World Cup.
Even if it wins, Australia will have to face Peru. In the past, Australia played against South American teams in the play-offs, but only the 2006 World Cup in Germany was involved in the danger. This time, I am afraid that Australia will be more fierce again.