Just came back from Wellington (New Zealand) and I'm still shattered. This tie was ours to lose, plain and simple. The arrogance took over the hunger and desire that was shown over two legs against the Saudis and its a shame. Our players choked when it matters and its tough on us fans this second time around as we came from Australia but had fans traveling two days for this one game. The team didn't play to its powers and it collectively failed to beat a team that was scared shitless of us. This generation has lost its chance imo, its time to start building on getting new blood into the team.
Obviously, they don't deserve to play at a world cup. Not being able to beat New Zeland, or to score a single goal in 180 minutes, proves that teams like Bahrain don't belong in worlds best 32 teams (or best 64) and it proves that Asians shouldn't be given a chance to have 5 teams at a world cup.
Since there isn't any difference in quality at all, instead of a play off between the 5th Asian and the best Oceanian team, i'd give this spot to the best Oceanian team even without play-offs.
I don't know how you determine the merit to being in the world cup as by your standards then most of the spots will be given to Europe and South America. The World Cup is allowing the smaller countries to develop by giving them the chance of reaching the world cup and smell the big stage. Performance wise they wouldn't even come close to the big guns and a Bahrain, New Zealand, Angola or Togo will come close to even a last 16. But people don't care about the smaller teams anymore because thats how football is.
Bahrain couldn't score against a weak NZ side but did beat a mammoth of a team (in Asian terms) in Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean anything to you but it does to many people around these parts.
I'll put things into perspective for Bahrain and I'm sure it applies to many other small countries around the world. There isn't a professional league or set up and football is laced with corruption and players rarely get any contracts that are worthwhile but dam the fans love the game even though the population is around 1m. Compare that to the smallest European nation
If the best teams in the world are taking the world cup for granted then is it fair to reward that complacency by giving them extra chances? Portugal, Argentina, France and Mexico fucked around and should we give them the extra chance or make them go through the hard route? The World Cup should have proper representation from all over the world and its not restricted to some parts over others.