The World Game continues with the column designed to get to the heart of the Asian Cup, or, failing that, any other part of its anatomy that we can reach. Throughout this festival of international football we’ll feature the good, the bad and the ugly – and the occasional interesting tweet.
Let’s be serious – there can be no excuse for the Socceroos not beating UAE in their AFC Cup semi-final on Tuesday night.
UAE shouldn’t even be there. Japan should be, but the defending champion blew it in its quarter-final against UAE and the opposition took advantage.
After the group stage of the tournament was completed, ACRO tipped Japan to go on and win it from there. It wasn’t rocket science – the Japanese looked the best team.
But, at the same time, ACRO pointed out Japan had an issue with its accuracy when shooting, saying: “That is the main thing that stands in the way of the Japanese team taking the title – it is not the greatest finisher.”
Japan got even worse in front of goal against UAE. Even as flat as Japan strangely looked in general play for much of the match, it still should have won it in normal time.
UAE took the lead in the seventh minute and Japan didn’t equalise until the 81st. Japan could have still easily won the game late in normal time, but wasted a couple of the best chances it had all night.
The 30 minutes of extra-time went scoreless and UAE advanced by winning a penalty shootout. It said it all about Japan that it was finally eliminated as a result of not being good enough in that most basic of one-on-one situations.
Statistics taken from the official AFC Asian Cup website show Japan had 35 shots at goal in the match, eight of which were on target and 12 were blocked. UAE had three shots – two on target and one blocked. Yet the two teams came up with the same number of goals.
Japan had a shot accuracy percentage (excluding blocked shots) of 34.8 per cent, as opposed to UAE’s 100 per cent.
That’s football. It’s all about taking chances and if you don’t take your chances you’ve got no-one to blame but yourself for the result.
The Socceroos are the hot favourites now – not just to win this match, but the tournament.
They are a better team than UAE. They will create more chances and take more shots at goal than the opposition. It’s whether they can capitalise on opportunities and take control of the game that is the question.
If they don’t, they risk going the same way as Japan.
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