In the early morning of April 26, Beijing time, the U23 Asian Cup ended with two 1/4 finals, South Korea and Qatar went out together, and Japan and Indonesia became the first teams to advance to the semifinals. Compared to Japan, Indonesia's qualification is magical, and this former fish belly shake super dark horse, and even hope to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
The tournament is hosted by Qatar, and the Qatar Olympic Games, as the host, hope to use the home advantage to win a ticket to the Olympic Games.
In the group stage, 7 points were accumulated to qualify for the first place, and easily advanced to the knockout round, but in the face of Japan's game, Qatar still couldn't play, and its goalkeeper was sent off with a red card for a serious foul, which became a turning point in the game, allowing Japan to play one more advantage for a long time, until the extra time gradually reflected, Qatar lost 2 goals in a row and collapsed, and finally was eliminated 2-4.
On this match day, in addition to Qatar, another strong team, South Korea, was also eliminated, and the opponent was Indonesia, which participated for the first time.
Previously, South Korea had participated in nine consecutive Olympic Games, a record for Asian teams, and the goal of this tournament is to qualify for 10 consecutive editions. However, due to the inability to recruit the strongest squad, South Korea's overall strength has been greatly reduced, although the group stage won all three games to qualify, it is also a stumble, and now in the quarterfinals against Indonesia, which has participated for the first time, South Korea has capsized in the gutter this time.
In recent years, Indonesia has rapidly improved its strength by naturalizing a large number of players, and both the national team and the national Olympic team have become among the third-rate in Asia. Now the national Olympic team is participating in the U23 Asian Cup for the first time, not only qualifying from the group, but also overthrowing South Korea to advance to the semi-finals, continuing to make history.
In this game, Indonesia had an absolute advantage, not only led 2-1 in the first 70 minutes, but also let South Korea have no shots on target, and then South Korea players were sent off with red cards, Indonesia did not grasp the regular time to solve the game, and finally won the penalty shootout thrillingly.
As a new team, Indonesia advanced to the semi-finals in the first competition, during which it defeated Australia and South Korea, which was a miracle and also made the Chinese Olympic Games feel ashamed, the latter participated in all the group games in 5 times, and faced Japan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, South Korea and other teams all lost, with a miserable record of 15 games, 2 wins and 13 losses.