In the early morning of April 22, Beijing time, a match in Group A of the group stage of the U23 Asian Cup was played by Australia against Qatar. In the end, Australia bombarded 20 feet without scoring a goal, drew 0-0 with Qatar, accumulated 2 points in 3 rounds and 0 goals to lock the third place in the group, was eliminated in an upset, and also missed the ticket to the Paris Olympics in advance.
As a qualifier for the Paris Olympics, only the top three teams will qualify directly, with the fourth place team playing in the play-offs. Both Australia and Qatar will be hoping to qualify for the Olympics, but after the first two rounds of the group stage, the teams will qualify differently.
Qatar, as the host, after consecutive victories over Indonesia and Jordan, accumulated 6 points to advance to the quarterfinals, Australia drew with Jordan and lost to Indonesia, and 1 point in 2 rounds fell to the bottom of the group, and the qualifying situation is not optimistic.
In this game, after Qatar qualified for the first round of the game, it sent a number of substitute players and also gave Australia the opportunity to possess the ball.
According to statistics, Australia had 75% possession of the ball, completed 20 shots on goal and 6 on target, unfortunately did not score a goal, Qatar kept the score 0-0 to the end.
Due to Indonesia's victory over Jordan in the same group, Indonesia won 2 consecutive games and accumulated 6 points, locking the top two in the group, plus Qatar locked the qualification early, so Australia and Jordan were eliminated together.
With Australia's exit, it is also the biggest upset of this event, because in the past two editions, Australia has broken into the top four, including the fourth place in 2020 and the fourth place in 2022, and now it can't even enter the top 8 knockout rounds, and the results are comparable to the National Olympics.
Due to consecutive losses to Japan and South Korea, the National Olympic Games started with 2 consecutive defeats and accumulated 0 points, and was eliminated in one round in advance, and all 5 times in the group stage were stopped, and only by winning the final round against the United Arab Emirates could they avoid falling to the bottom. If they win, the Olympic Games will lock up the third place in the group, and at the same time, three points more than Australia's two.
In stark contrast, Indonesia, from Southeast Asia, qualified for the group for the first time and completed a frantic comeback.