~snip~
All the countries you just mentioned now are all group leaders in the world cup qualifiers. Japan leads Group C, South Korea is the leader of tops Group B and Iran tops Group A. So there are every possibilities that they would qualify for the next round. Other countries that have the quality to make it to the fourth round is Uzbekistan, Iraq and Australia also could qualifier if they maintain their performance. But the most interesting group for me is Group C where almost all the nations have chances to come to the next round.
What you say is true, but in my opinion, besides Japan in group C, of course the team teams such as South Korea and Iran are still not safe at this time even though they are at the top of the standings, because with the remaining 5 matches available,everything can happen because the points they have are still likely to be caught up by the team team ranked 2, 3 and even 4, in contrast with Japan, which actually looks more able to dominate group C and even they only need 2 more wins at least to secure second place at the end of the qualification later.
The mentioned indeed have their very good chance of getting included in the list of qualifiers. But they should still work on it and not get too confident as one mistake can get them out of the game. They need to make sure they will get the slot within their confederation. So consistently winning is the key. But if not, as much as possible eliminate some of their weak opponents and be included in those allocated slots.
And if they can win critical matches like their supposed strong opponents, I guess, they will have good assurance that they can be in the qualifying teams.
It will be interesting year next year for them, as we will see the strongest teams who can be on those list.
With the competition in each group running very tight at the moment, even each team is no longer allowed to slip in the remaining matches, because losing even 1 point will certainly make it more difficult for them to get a ticket to qualify, so the team that is able to appear stable and defeat strong opponents will have a greater chance of qualifying like you say