Taiwan's national soccer team was once again outclassed after losing 2-0 to Iran in Taipei last night in its fifth Group B qualifying match for the 2007 Asian Cup.
Taiwan's young and inexperienced squad went into the game at the Taipei Municipal Stadium knowing that a draw would have boosted their chances of forcing a bottom place play-off with Syria in the group's final match next month.
Iran, on the other hand, arrived in Taipei knowing that they had already qualified for an 11th appearance in the Asian Cup finals.
PHOTO: LIN ZHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
In a pre-match interview, Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said that he had "respect" for the Taiwanese, but his focus was "on finishing first in the group."
As if to prove his words were not bluster, Ghalenoei packed his squad with some of the best players Iran has to offer.
The starting line-up included both former Asian Football Cup player of the year Ali Karimi from German giants Bayern Munich and highly respected midfielder Andrianik Teymourian, who plies his trade for the English Premiership side Bolton Wanderers.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's embattled coach Toshiaki Imai admitted that "it will be a tough game," but hoped that "the players will live up to their potential."
This was not be, but in the opening 10 minutes, Taiwan did put on a spirited performance. Sadly, sloppy passing once again proved to be their downfall. Taiwan frustrated their opposition, denying them several early chances, but in the 11th minute Karimi scored the first of his two goals after he tapped the ball across the line from a pass from Mehdi Mahdavikia, who left five Taiwanese in his wake after dribbling down the right wing to pass into the penalty box.
Play slowed down to a snail's pace after the opening goal as Taiwan's defense continued to frustrate the visitors.
The second half opened at a faster pace with Iran sending a free kick outside the penalty box over the bar. As the second half continued, Taiwan survived attack after attack, and frustrated the Iranians with its now-eight man defensive wall.
Karimi made it 2-0 in the 57th minute after he found the ball at his feet at the edge of the penalty area, made swift work of four defenders and slotted the ball home from close range.
Taiwan were down to 10 men with roughly 15 minutes to go after Kao Hao-chieh (
Iran should have taken the chance to go three up, but somehow Taiwan managed to hold on, thanks in no small part to the offside trap which they persisted in playing.
The result means that Iran will go up against South Korea in a game that will decide the Group B winner.
However, Iran's coach was not satisfied with his team's display.
"I've seen some improvement in the Taiwan squad since we played the first game [in Tehran]. We were looking for three points but unfortunately we wasted a lot of opportunities and we should have been in a better position early on," Ghalenoei said.
"I was not satisfied with the final minutes of the game, which was a bit rough and disappointing," he said.
As for Imai, some questions remain as to whether he will continue as Taiwan's coach after this year's qualifiers. But he feels he has managed to bring Taiwanese soccer forward.
"After we played South Korea, I thought that we had lost any improvement we had been making. But this game changed my opinion.
"We didn't take the opportunities we should have, and we didn't finish very well," he said. "But as a whole today's game was good. I can safely say that the Taiwan team is developing."
Taiwan takes the wooden spoon for bottom place in Group B. The sloppy squad has conceded 21 goals in five games and earned no points.
Taiwan's final qualifying match will see the side hoping to score at least a goal and salvage some self-respect in Damascus when they play the Syrians on Nov. 15.
The 2007 Asian Cup will for the first time be jointly hosted by four nations -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam -- and take place between July 7 and 29 next year. In all 16 teams -- the six winners and runners up from the qualifying groups and the four host nations -- will compete for the Cup.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier