Chapter 173: The opponent of the semifinals

Although there were almost 30 minutes left in the game, Lippi turned and sat back in the dugout when he saw the ball roll into the South Korean goal.

As is often the case in football, when one side struggles to find a way to restrain the opponent's tactics, there are not too many surprises in the outcome of the game.

The South Koreans can't guard against Li Qingshan, which means that the possibility of the South Korean team winning this game is basically gone.

When the game resumed, the backward South Koreans began to attack with the ball, but their attacking power was difficult to penetrate the Chinese team's defense and pose no threat to Zeng's goal.

In the 86th minute, the Chinese team scored another goal to seal the victory.

At that time, Li Qingshan stopped the ball and found Wu Lei, who replaced Yu Chao, Wu Lei fully exerted his speed, leaving the two central defenders of the South Korean team behind, and then was knocked to the ground by Kim Jin-hyun who attacked in the penalty area.

The referee decisively awarded a penalty and then showed Kim Jin-hyun a red card.

South Korea's head coach Stillik stood on the sidelines, frowning until his assistant reminded him that he had been sent off and that the South Koreans had to bring on a new goalkeeper to take the spot-kick.

Goalkeeper Kim Sung-gyu from Ulsan Hyundai didn't even have time to warm up, so he hurriedly put on his gloves and stood in front of the ball.

The unprepared Kim Sung-gyu was completely in the wrong direction in the face of Li Qingshan's penalty, and Li Qingshan easily scored the ball.

Three to one!

The Chinese team sealed the win.

In the next game, the South Koreans launched a desperate onslaught, but to no avail.

Until the last minute of stoppage time, the South Koreans' attack continued. In the end, when Feng Xiaoting cleared the ball with a big foot, the referee blew three whistles and blew the whistle for the end of the game!

"It's game over! The Chinese team defeated the South Korean team 3-1 and reached the semifinals of the Asian Cup! Duan Xuan held the headset tightly, and shouted with all his strength during the joy of the scene.

"Now the Chinese team can go to rest first, their semi-final opponent will be produced after the match between the Japanese team and the United Arab Emirates team tomorrow, and the strength of the UAE is obviously below the Japanese team, so the opponent of the Chinese team in the semi-finals is likely to be the Japanese team!"

Duan Xuan was right, when this match was over, Lippi was ready to face Japan in the semifinals.

At the end of the first day of the quarter-finals, Australia and China, who made it to the semi-finals, will need to know their opponents after the end of the second day.

The other two quarter-final matchups are Iran against Iraq and Japan against the United Arab Emirates.

There is no doubt that Iran and Japan are both top Asian teams, so almost everyone is optimistic about these two teams to advance to the last four.

Of course, the Japanese team thinks so.

Even before the start of the Japanese team's competition, the Japanese had already announced their qualification almost in advance.

In particular, Japan's star Keisuke Honda said at the pre-match press conference of the Chinese team: "Our opponent in the semi-finals will be China, which is a good thing for us, it will make us a little less consumed in the semi-finals and have some advantages in the final." ”

Keisuke Honda meant not only that they did not take their opponent in this game the UAE in their eyes at all, but also did not take the Chinese team in their eyes.

Indeed, there are not many strong teams in the half of the Japanese team, especially after the strongest South Korean team was eliminated by the Chinese team, in the eyes of the Japanese team, there is almost no obstacle to reaching the Asian Cup final.

Keisuke Honda's words are indeed a bit arrogant, but the strength of the Japanese team gives them the confidence to be arrogant.

Since the 90s, Japan's football governing body has developed an ambitious and concrete football development plan. Japanese football implements a complete set of tactical system from top to bottom, and the teaching materials used by all youth training institutions in Japan are based on the study of Brazilian football in Japan, taking into account the characteristics of the Japanese themselves.

With the support of a large number of football population, Japanese football began to take off after entering the 21st century and became the top team in Asia.

Taking this year's Japanese team's squad as an example, the players who play in the top five European leagues include Shinji Kagawa, Keisuke Honda, Yuto Nagatomo, Shinji Okazaki, Atsuto Uchida and others.

With these players who stayed in Europe as the backbone, supplemented by those top Japanese players in the J League, and supported by a complete tactical system from small to large, the Japanese team is undoubtedly a team that can go sideways in Asia, whether it is individual ability or team tacit understanding.

However, the Japanese team was clearly unlucky in this Asian Cup.

In the 92nd minute of stoppage time, the Japanese were still leading the UAE 1-0, but just as the game was about to end, Omar Abdurrahman, known as Messi in the Gulf, curled home from the edge of the box to help the UAE equalize and send the game into extra-time.

In extra-time, neither side was able to achieve anything, and in the penalty shoot-out, Keisuke Honda missed a penalty and the UAE hit all five penalties, and Japan were denied out of the semi-finals by the UAE 5-6 on aggregate.

This Asian Cup seems to be very popular and unpopular.

In the other quarter-final, the match between Iran and Iraq also ended in extra time, and Iran was eliminated by Iraq in a penalty shootout after extra time.

The UAE and Iraq reached the semi-finals, while the Japanese and Iranians had to stop in the quarterfinals and go home early.

The opponent of the Chinese team in the semifinals became the UAE team.

This made the Chinese media very excited, because in their opinion, it was obviously much more difficult to play the Japanese team than the United Arab Emirates.

But Lippi didn't see it that way in an interview.

"I don't think it's going to be easier to play the UAE than Japan, but the UAE eliminated the Japanese team who reached the semi-finals, there are no weak teams in the semi-finals, it's going to be a tough game and we'll be well prepared."

"When it comes to the semi-finals, every team's goal is to win the championship. I hope that after 90 minutes, the team that gets the ticket to the final will be the Chinese team! ”