Australia and Japan left it late yesterday as they began their bid to reach the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with narrow home victories over lowly ranked opposition.
The pair, who both received a bye in the opening two rounds of Asian qualifying after reaching last year’s World Cup Finals, were both rusty in their first competitive match since contesting the Asian Cup final in January.
Japanese defender Maya Yoshida was the Asian champions’ match-winner as his 94th minute header broke the resilience of the defensive-minded North Koreans in the battle of the 2010 Finalists at the Saitama Stadium.
“The players battled until the end against a great wall North Korea put in front of us. They deserve credit for the way they kept hammering away. Our patience paid off,” Japan coach Alberto Zaccheroni, who has yet to taste defeat in charge of the Blue Samurai, said after the 1-0 win.
Japan, without the creativity of injured attacking midfielder Keisuke Honda, were heading for a disappointing draw against the 114th FIFA ranked visitors, who had Pak Kwang-ryong sent off with seven minutes to go, before Yoshida converted Hiroshi Kiyotake’s cross.
In Brisbane, Australian striker Alex Brosque came off the bench to fire the winner in the 86th minute that sent the Socceroos to a 2-1 victory and deny Thailand an unlikely point.
“It feels like a loss, but the positive is we got the three points,” said Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer. “There’s no excuses. We were all over the place and we didn’t have any real shape.”
The matches were two of 10 qualifiers taking place across five groups in the region yesterday as the 20 sides battle it out for the four guaranteed places in Brazil with a fifth possible via a playoff.
The group winners and runners-up from the third round will advance to the fourth round where the 10 teams will be split into two groups with the top two sides from each advancing to Brazil.
South Korea, also beginning their campaign at the third round stage, enjoyed an easy night at the Goyang Stadium as they thrashed lowly Lebanon 6-0.
New Arsenal striker and Korean captain Park Chu-young helped himself to a hat-trick against the lowest ranked Asian side remaining in the qualifiers, with Sunderland forward Ji Dong-won netting twice.
In Kunming, hosts China overcame a half-time deficit to beat Singapore 2-1 to give new coach Jose Antonio Camacho a win in his first competitive game in charge. Singapore took the lead in the 33rd minute through 41-year-old striker Aleksandar Duric and took that advantage to the break.
China had to wait until the 69th minute to equalise, when Zheng Zhi scored from the penalty spot, and winger Yu Hai scored what proved the winner in the 73rd minute.
The second-half comeback would have come as a relief for former Spain coach Camacho, who is tasked with rapidly improving China’s poor standing in the sport and to qualify for the Finals.
In another Group C match, veteran striker Maksim Shatskikh scored the sole goal as Uzbekistan won 1-0 at Tajikistan. The Arsenal Kiev striker netted in the 72nd minute to give the visitors a share of top spot in the group with Japan.
Despite the home defeat, the narrow margin was a creditable performance by the Tajiks, who only found themselves in the third round after Syria were disqualified for fielding an ineligible player in the previous round.
WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS RESULTS
ASIAN ZONE
GROUP A
IRAQ 0 JORDAN 2
CHINA 2 SINGAPORE 1
GROUP B
S. KOREA 6 LEBANON 0
GROUP C
JAPAN 1 N. KOREA 0
TAJIKISTAN 0 UZBEKISTAN 1
GROUP D
AUSTRALIA 2 THAILAND 1
GROUP E
IRAN 3 INDONESIA 0
No comments:
Post a Comment