Daryl's Notebook: Scouting the U20 Asian Cup (Quarter-final Day 2)
Two more names who will be calling up their hotels to extend their stay in Shenzhen will be determined today!
After two gruelling and hard-fought ties during the first day of the quarter-final, the first two teams to represent Asia in Chile at the U20 World Cup in a few months time have been determined. Saudi Arabia shocked the host nation China right at the death with a 94th minute winner, which they became the first team to be in the semi-final and booked their flight to Chile. After that, Australia secured a 3-2 comeback in their tie against Iraq to return to the world stage for the first time since 2013.
Now, four more teams will head out to the pitches in Shenzhen, China to fight for the last two remaining spots in the semi-final of the U20 Asian Cup and the opportunity to take FIFA’s accommodation and flight money for a summer trip to Chile to play against the world’s best youngsters. With that in mind, let’s not wait any further and get into the last two quarter-final matches!
Iran 1-1(p) Japan
Early minutes and Iran already showed the intention of wanting to win the tie by being on the front foot and they were super aggressive with their press. When Japan tried to play out from the back, Iran looked to force their opposition through the middle and many of their players immediately put pressure on the Japanese midfielders, which forced them to lose the ball in the middle of the pitch. That had led to (#10) Reza Ghandipour’s opening goal for Iran, which put them in a controlling position of the match.
Once Iran had settled back down and Japan regained control of the match, the Eastern Asian side showed their true ability and dominance. With Iran took a step back and defended in a 4-4-2 mid-block while also used a winger to track Japan’s wide players, Japan still patiently broke that mid-block down by moving the opposition and creating space for their wide players to attack the half space or to isolate them in 1v1 situations where they could take the Iranian defenders on and crossed the ball into the box.
That play gave players like left-back (#3) Niko Takahashi, right-back (#2) Rei Umeki, wingers (#13) Hisatsugu Ishii, (#11) Alen Inoue opportunities to showcase their talents and made the most of Japan’s preference attacking style of trying to be wing oriented. But while these players have had a lot of the ball, Japan still have not managed to create many noticeable chances from out wide, but rather their equalising goal came from a screamer from way outside of the box by midfielder (#6) Kosei Ogura.
It was not like Japan did not create chances as the match went on, in fact they started to create more dangerous chances towards Iran’s goal. But the problem was their attackers just seemed to be very inefficient in front of goal, they kept “converting goals into chances” by wasting good chances and not forcing the Iranian keeper to do a lot of work. A lot of their shots were also taken from outside of the box, which further decreased their chance of scoring.
Getting closer to the end of the second half and the match still did not seem to change. It was still frustrating to see Japan wasting chance after chance while Iran managed to hold on to their 1-1 advantage with the hope of going to the penalty shootout where things would be more level for them. And with Japan’s inefficiency in front of goal, this became the first quarter-final that had to go to extra time and maybe even further.
Lots of switch play passes were used by Japan to find wide players on the opposite side of the pitch. Since the priority of Japan was to get their wide players into advantageous positions that could help them progress into the final third and, subsequently, the box, they baited Iran to commit players to one side of the pitch then quickly switch the play to make the most of free spaces on the opposite side.
Credits to the Iranian defenders as well since they have saved their team from conceding on so many occasions. While their keeper (#1) Arsha Shakouri was not tested too much, the defenders made quite a few goal-line clearances to avoid conceding a goal at various stages of the match.
Nothing separated these two teams in extra time as they went at each other, threw some challenges, but could not create too many chances to score. And with the blessing of looking into the future thanks to my inability to catch up with the match when it was live before I had to pause my replay to watch the South Korea vs Uzbekistan match below, this match went into penalty shoot out by the looks of it.
The Japanese players took their penalty very confidently and, besides from Takahashi’s penalty, all of their penalties were deservedly converted. Felt a bit of nerves from Iraq as they missed the first two, which put them in a situation where they had to play catch up to a Japan side that had dominated the match and went into the shootout very confidently.
Some standout players at the end of the match:
Iran U20: (#3) Hesam Nafari, (#5) Erfam Darvishaali, (#9) Yarghoub Barage
Japan U20: (#4) Rion Ichihara, (#3) Niko Takahashi, (#6) Kosei Ogura, (#13) Hisatsugu Ishii, (#11) Alen Inoue, (#7) Ryonosuke Sato
South Korea (p)3-3 Uzbekistan
I thought the match would start with an early lead to Uzbekistan after South Korea conceded a penalty within the first minute of the match, but keeper (#23) Hong Seong-min saved (#10) Mukhammadali Urinboev’s penalty well to keep the score at 0-0 and allowed the match to not be one-sided earlier on.
That saved penalty seemed to give South Korea a confidence to go on and dominate the first 10 minutes of the match. They controlled plenty of possession and pushed Uzbekistan deep inside their own half while also created plenty of noticeable chances through their wide players. But with the many chances that they created, they still could not beat Uzbekistan keeper (#12) Mukhammadyusuf Sobirov, especially when he made a couple of crucial saves to keep the score at 0-0.
Meanwhile, Uzbekistan relied on counter-attacks to create their chances, which was understandable since they rarely had too many opportunities where they had settled possession. Relying on wide players like (#7) Daler Tukhsanov and (#5) Azizbek Tulkinbekov, Uzbeki’s wide players took the whole team forward as they attempted to create a shot on target or, at least, gained a set piece situation where they could score. That was how Uzbekistan scored the opening goal after they got a corner from a counter-attack and the initial cross found the head of either Tukhsanov or (#22) Asilbek Jumaev (unsure due to different info provided by the broadcast and the data).
South Korea themselves also got a goal from a corner where the ball was delivered into the 6-yard box. Uzbekistan defenders and keeper were not able to clear the ball properly and allowed a flick-on to find centre-back (#20) Shin Min-ha who scored a tap-in from close range.
Lots of challenges were also thrown left and right, with defenders and midfielders from both teams throwing themselves at each other to win the ball for their respective team.
Early into the second half and South Korea continued their possession dominance as Uzbekistan could not do a lot but being forced to defend for the majority of the match so far. And South Korea capitalised on that dominance by scoring their second goal from…you guessed it!…a set piece situation. Again, another situation where the Uzbek players did not clear the ball properly and allowed centre-back Shin Min-ha to close in and scored once more.
Not long after, South Korea extended their lead through a fast break where striker (#10) Kim Tae-won got in behind the Uzbek’s backline before receiving a through ball to be in a 1v1 situation against the Uzbek keeper Sobirov. A cheeky lob was enough to get the ball over Sobirov and into the net.
With that 3-1 lead, South Korea had taken a step back to prioritise defending and be more aggressive in winning challenges. That gave Uzbekistan more opportunities to create chances, yet they did not make the most of it since the South Korean players constantly fouled them to stop the momentum or their chance was wasted. This was also the time where the South Korean backline was put to the test and seemed to have controlled the situation well with the centre-back duo of Shin Min-ha and (#4) Cho Hyun-woo cleared plenty of crosses and passes heading into the South Korean’s penalty box.
With all of their attacking efforts, Uzbekistan were finally repaid with Urinboev’s well-placed shot into the bottom right corner after a fast break that saw five Uzbekistan players went up against South Korea’s backline. Would that be enough to help Uzbekistan take this game into extra time? Let’s see…
Apparently yes! Once again, we headed into extra time after (#23) Abdugaffor Khaydarov scored right at the death and with virtually the last kick of the game to help Uzbekistan completed the comeback and tied the game at 3-3.
The accumulated yellow cards that the South Korean players received throughout the match might come back to bite them at some point I think, given the way the match was heading. Just a lot of fouls being made with 16 fouls made for South Korea and 18 for Uzbekistan at the 100th minute mark.
Still nothing separated the two teams after the first half of extra time, with Uzbekistan and South Korea failed to create any noticeable chances so far, even into the early minutes of the second half of extra time. Again, like the Saudi Arabia vs China tie, the first team who made a mistake would lose or they would drag each other into a penalty shootout with the way things evolved at this stage.
Welp, penalties it is then. Second game of the day, and South Korea would be gutted about the fact that they lost their lead and now had to face the luck of the penalty shootout. And they saw it out, but not after keeper (#23) Hong Sung-min confidently saved two out of four Uzbekistan’s penalties in a wild penalty shootout to secure their win.
Some standout players at the end of the match:
South Korea U20: (#23) Hong Sung-min, (#4) Cho Hyun-woo, (#20) Shin Min-ha, (#14) Baek Min-gyu, (#10) Kim Tae-won
Uzbekistan U20: (#12) Mukhammadyusuf Sobirov, (#20) Dilshod Abdullaev, (#7) Daler Tukhsanov, (#10) Mukhammadali Urinboev
Wow. Just wow. The quarter-final stage of the U20 Asian Cup has truly delivered. Two last minute goals. Two penalty shootouts. Plenty of bangers. Four teams remained and will represent Asia in the U20 World Cup in a few months time. With a very big prize at stake, all 8 teams brought forward their best performance and made this year’s quarter-final into a very memorable stage in forever, I think?
Now that Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Australia enter a 1-day break to recover, which they will desperately need it, I will see you once the semi-final of the competition returns where the Notebook will continue the coverage of the U20 Asian Cup!