Star player:
Shunsuke Nakamura

Previous appearances:
1998 (first round), 2002 (second round), 2006 (first round)

How they qualified
AFC
Bahrain (a)         2-3
Uzbekistan (h)    1-1
Qatar (a)           0-3
Australia (h)       0-0
Bahrain (h)        1-0
Uzbekistan (a)    0-1
Qatar (h)           1-1
Australia (a)        2-1

Chances:
Qualified without too much difficulty but a young side, augmented by the experience of the likes of Espanyol playmaker Nakamura, are unlikely to get beyond the first stage.

Strange but true
When Shunsuke Nakamura joined Celtic in 2005 the club put up street billboards advertising that a poster of him was available in their official magazine. There were plenty of red faces when the photo was revealed to be of Du Wie, trialist from China. Two years later Nakamura scored the title clinching goal and won the league’s best player award.