Eight countries - Australia, Bahrain, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, North Korea, and Uzbekistan - have already secured their passage into the final phase of qualifying.

That leaves two tickets still to be stamped, with four teams battling for the right to go into the hat on June 27 for the draw for the deciding round.

Groups One and Five are still on a knife-edge, with Iraq playing Qatar in Dubai and United Arab Emirates against Syria in Al Ain.

A draw for resurgent Iraq at the Al Ahli Stadium will be enough for the Asian champions to advance, while Syria need to beat UAE by a 3-0 margin.

Adnan Hamad’s Iraq have come back from nowhere, hauling themselves into contention with a 2-1 win over China in Tianjin last weekend, while Qatar were drubbed 3-1 by Australia.

"That victory helped us to continue our bid for a ticket in the World Cup finals," said Hamad. "We are confident."

Despite being outclassed by the Socceroos, Qatari coach Jorge Fossati believes his team can rise to the occasion.

"We still have a chance to qualify," he said.

"If we beat Iraq we will do it, so I trust my players to deliver.

"Hopefully, we will have learned from our mistakes and we won’t make those mistakes against Iraq. Actually, I am confident that we will beat Iraq and qualify for the next stage."

Australia take on China in Sydney looking to finish top of the group, with Harry Kewell keen to play a full 90 minutes as he continues his recovery from lengthy injury spells.

The Aussie skipper has split with Liverpool and is on the lookout for another club and wants to complete his month-long batch of four matches with the Socceroos to regain confidence.

"There’s a very important game on Sunday that we want to win. And then we’ll look forward to the next round," said Kewell.

Australian coach Pim Verbeek said the match would provide an opportunity to test some of his younger players alongside a core group of senior stars.

"We’re going to keep some players here because we’re going to win, we like to win, we’d like to finish with 13 points after the six games," he said.

Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer will not play due to suspension.

The United Arab Emirates will be more than happy to emulate their opening performance of the campaign against the Syrians, which ended in a 1-1 stalemate.

History favours Bruno Metsu’s men, who have never lost to Syria at home, winning and drawing three encounters each since 1979.

"We have nearly secured our qualification but we must prepare very well against Syria in our last match," said Metsu.

Iran, who have already qualified from the group, play Kuwait.

In other games, Japan are planning revenge against Bahrain in Saitama, after the Gulf side upset them 1-0 at home last March.

Oman and Thailand play a dead rubber in the other group game.

The two Koreas face each other in Seoul after the North failed in its attempt to have the game moved to a third country, citing demonstrations in the southern capital against the resumption of US beef imports.

Group 4 table toppers Uzbekistan play Saudi Arabia looking to keep intact their record of winning all their group games. No other team has managed the feat.