The Iranians won the next three Asian Cups, twice on fifa 14 coins xbox home ground – as well as winning the Asian Games in 1974 and qualifying for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. They even went completely unbeaten in the Asian Cup from 1968 to 1976. Burma had their moment of glory by winning silver in 1968, and twice won Asian Games gold in the same era. Halfway through this hat trick of Iranian success, which was brought to an end by the sweeping political changes in Iran, the Arab countries joined the AFC and swelled the number of Asian Cup entrants.

It also marked the start of a new polarisation of strength in Asia, between the extreme east and west parts of the continent, with other hardy contenders from the Indian subcontinent and south east Asia struggling to keep the pace. New era in 1984Kuwait turned their 1976 silver into gold four years later, on home soil, before capturing world headlines in their notorious disrupted match against France in the 1982 World Cup. By 1980, too, the increased participation necessitated a more systematic qualifying system, with group tournaments played for the first time; these were in Abu Dhabi, Bangladesh, Thailand and the Philippines.

The Singapore finals heralded the start of a new era of the Asian Cup, not only because of the AFC's bold new marketing strategy for the event, increased television coverage and its effective definitive eclipse of the Asian Games as the continent's prime tournament, but also because it was the first of four successive finals contested by the new force, Saudi Arabia. The Singapore finals, all played in the National Stadium on a pitch increasingly suffering from the heavy rains, saw the Saudis lift the coveted trophy by overcoming another team which was staking its claim to a place in the established international elite: China. It seemed it was only a matter of time before China, who www.fifa14store.co.uk had joined the AFC in 1974, would win the honours, but that potential still remains to be realised.