Seeding
The initial seeding (used in the draw for the first two rounds) was based on each team's performance during the qualification stage for the previous World Cup. The admission of Australia to the AFC complicated matters slightly (as they had not taken part in the previous AFC qualification cycle, but had progressed to the World Cup finals in Germany - and had advanced further than the AFC qualifiers).
Initially, the AFC placed Australia as the first seed even though this contradicted the letter of the seeding - past practice (such as adopted by the AFC in the draw for the qualification to the 2008 Olympic Football Tournament) would have seeded Australia last.
By the time of the main qualification draw in Durban (which included the AFC third round), the seeding had been adjusted to rank the top 5 AFC nations according to their performance in the World Cup Final Tournament (of 2006). This resulted in minor changes to the seeding at that point.
Read more about this topic: 2010 FIFA World Cup Qualification (AFC)
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