A tale of two halves as Uzbekistan beats Taiwan 1-0

An understrength Taiwanese national soccer team was defeated by Uzbekistan 1-0 on Friday at Taipei's Zhongshan Stadium.

The loss came in the team's first outing since the Asian Cup qualifiers ended in December.

Taiwan put up a decent effort in the first half, when most of the action was concentrated in the center of the field.

Uzbekistan came close to opening the scoring with a shot that hit the bar.

That scare notwithstanding, Taiwan's defense managed to do a good job of keeping Uzbekistan's attacks at bay.

It was a different story in the second half as the Taiwanese back line was increasingly exposed.

Uzbekistan scored the game's only goal when a Khikmatjon Khoshimov header beat Taiwan's goalkeeper Hsu Jen-feng (許人丰) in the 53rd minute.

Huang Wei-yi (黃瑋儀) and Chang Han (張涵) were missing from Taiwan's attack and first-choice goalkeeper Pan Wei-chi (潘威誌) was also absent.