Asian Cup | The top 4 were released, and the "Taiji Tigers" encountered the West Asian team

In the final match of the 2023 Asian Cup 1/4 finals on the evening of February 3 local time, the host country, as the defending champion, represented the Qatar team and drew 1-1 with the Uzbekistan team in 120 minutes, but with goalkeeper Basham's 3 successful saves, the Qatar team won the penalty shootout 3-2, thus eliminating the opponent with a total score of 4-3 and finally entering the top 4. This is also the second consecutive time that the Qatari team has advanced to the semi-finals of the Asian Cup. As in the previous tournament, a total of three teams from the West Asian region of Asian football made it to the top four, with South Korea becoming the only East Asian team in the top four.

Also in Doha 13 years ago, Uzbekistan reached the semi-finals of the Asian Cup for the first time in its history. Returning to the blessed land, Katanec's Uzbekistan team is eager to build on this achievement. However, on this night, they were met by defending champions Qatar who had home advantage. The two teams scored in succession for 90 minutes, and the score remained 1-1 until the end of extra time.

In the penalty shootout, Qatar goalkeeper Basham saved three penalty kicks from opposing players. The host team won the penalty shootout 3-2 to eliminate Uzbekistan with an aggregate score of 4-3 and finally advance to the semi-finals of this Asian Cup.

In the end, Jordan, South Korea, Iran and Qatar entered the top 4 of this Asian Cup. Among them, the two teams of Iraq and Qatar have both advanced to the semi-finals for two consecutive years. The South Korean team has reached the top four three times in the last four Asian Cups. Jordan qualified for the semi-finals for the first time in their history, but drew with South Korea during the group stage. Therefore, the re-meeting of the two teams in the semifinals is also quite suspenseful.

Judging from the top 4 of the last 4 Asian Cups, West Asia has gradually shown its strength in the competition with East Asian teams. For example, in the 2011 Asian Cup, there was no West Asian team in the top 4 teams (there are 2 East Asian teams from Japan and South Korea), during the 2015 Asian Cup, South Korea and Australia ranked among the top 4 in a row, while the other two top 4 teams Iraq and the United Arab Emirates were both from West Asia, and in the 2019 Asian Cup, in addition to Japan, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were all from West Asia. In this Cup, South Korea became the only East Asian team to reach the semi-finals.

I have to say that the West Asian powerhouses, which have a simple and direct style of play, make good use of their players' good physical confrontation ability. For example, the technical flow of the Japanese team was dispersed by the high-intensity pressure of the Iranian team. Going forward, Iraq's victory over Japan and Jordan's draw against South Korea benefited from the hardness of the attack and defense maintained throughout the game.

In the 1/4 finals of this Asian Cup, there was no big score similar to the Iranian team VS Chinese team that appeared in the same period last year. Unlike the last four quarter-finals, all of which were resolved within 90 minutes of regular time, two of this year's quarter-finals went to overtime. Except for the Ka and Ukraina matches, which were decided by penalty shootouts, the score difference in the remaining three games was only 1 goal. Iran did not win Japan until the last minute of stoppage time in the second half with a penalty kick.

It is worth noting that the Japanese team and the South Korean team conceded goals in each round from the first round of the group stage to the quarterfinals. Iran conceded in all rounds, except for a small win over Hong Kong, China in the group stage. The Jordan team also conceded goals in the rest of the rounds, except for the four-goal victory over Malaysia in the first round of the group stage. This is further proof that the gap between teams in different brackets and between teams in different brackets is narrowing. Therefore, there is still reason to be hopeful about the surprise of the semi-finals.

Asian Cup semi-final match-up situation:

South Korea VS Jordan

Iran VS Qatar

Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Xiao Yun

Editor/Wang Haozhou