Uzbekistan 3 - Saudi Arabia 0; Singapore, Oman win; two scoreless draws

China played host to undermanned Australia in the elevated city of Kunming. Five of Australia's English-based players were unable to come play due to injury. TO make matters worse, Archie Thompson succumbed to an injury in the tenth minute and had to be substituted out of the game. With their only true attack of the day failing to connect when Marco Bresciano's volley was saved by Zong Lei, the Australians had little chance of winning. Luckily for the Australians, goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer did manage to show up healthy and complete the game. He made clutch save after clutch save to keep the game scoreless until the eighty-seventh minute when he made a crucial error, taking down Qu Bo inside the box for a penalty kick. Schwarzer made up for his mistake on the very next play, however, stuffing Shao Jiayi's penalty kick and preserving the road tie for Australia. "I must apologise to the team and the fans for that penalty kick," said Shao Jiayi after the game. "Because of me we did not win the game. We should have won the game but we didn't because I missed the penalty kick. I really feel bad about this." Schwarzer had a different take. "To lose that match to a late penalty would have been a disaster for us because I thought we deserved to get something out of the game."

The second slate of games began with North Korea facing off against neighboring South Korea in Shanghai, China. Both teams were coming off of wins in February and were looking to consolidate their positions on top of Group C. Although South Korea dominated most of the goal-scoring chances, this game ended in a scoreless draw. "We should have won this match," said South Korea's Park Ji-Sung. "We couldn't finish around the net."

Uzbekistan played host to group favorites Saudi Arabia in Tashkent. In what amounted to one of the bigger surprises so far in Asian qualifying, the Uzbeks pushed across the first goal during stoppage time in the first half. A two-goals-in-three-minutes run did in the Saudis for good as Uzbekistan won by a resounding 3-0 score and now sit atop Group D with six points.

Singapore and Lebanon did battle in Singapore. Singapore are the surprise qualifiers out of both rounds one and two, but they had suffered a loss to Saudi Arabia in February's qualifier. That memory was erased on this night. Two goals in the first thirty minutes gave Singapore a nice cushion which they held on to for the rest of the night. Singapore won 2-0. Lebanese coach Emile Rustom was not very complimentary of Singapore after the game, citing the fact that some of his starters were unavailable due to injury. "It was expected. We were missing four key players; you can imagine Singapore without four players."

Thailand hosted Oman. Oman scored the fastest goal of the day in Asian qualifying, delivering the opening blow just twenty seconds into the match. There were no more goals scored for the rest of the day, however, and the visiting Omanis stole three points. Oman's coach Julio César Ribas spoke after the match. "To win three points away from home is hugely important. We can now continue fighting for qualification."

Goal scorers:
Uzbekistan: Kapadze 45+1; Shatskikh 65; Djeparov 67 PK

Singapore: Duric 8; Shahul 24

Oman: Al Ajmi 1