With all the personal arrogance and Euro-centricity he could muster, which is quite a lot, all
told, Alex Ferguson dismissed the leading international football tournament of the world's most
populous continent in those four words. But the tournament which started in Qatar on Friday is
rather more important than that.
Qatar lost to Uzbekistan 0-2 and Kuwait to China with the same result. The two games summarize
what's going on in Asian football today.
- The decline of football in Western Asia: in 1978, Iran was the team from Western Asian to qualify
to the world cup. Western Asia added 9 more teams till the 2006 World Cup: Kuwait, Iraq, UAE, Saudi
Arabia and Iran.