An Eriko Arakawa goal three minutes into stoppage time gave Japan a 3-2 victory over regional giants North Korea in the opener of the East Asian Women's Football Championship yesterday.
Arakawa trapped a throw-in from the right touchline before looping a 30m shot over goalkeeper Han Hye-yong and into the far-side corner of the net in the dying seconds of the game.
The last-gasp win avenged Japan's 1-0 loss to North Korea in the opener of the last East Asian Championship, in 2005, which was won by South Korea.
South Korea and hosts China were to clash later yesterday.
Japan took the lead after Kozue Ando knocked in a header from a long ball by Aya Miyama on three minutes.
North Korean striker Ri Kum-suk pulled one back in the 38th minute, heading home a cross from the right after Japanese goalkeeper Miho Fukumoto had fumbled.
Ri, who was named Asian Player of the Year after leading North Korea to the World Cup quarter-finals in China last September, sank a right-footer from inside the box four minutes after the break but it was ruled off-side.
North Korea did go ahead when Ri Un-gyong blasted a 25m screamer past Fukumoto on the hour mark.
But Miyama scored in the 82nd minute to bring the game back level, before Arakawa's unlikely late winner.
It was a big boost ahead of the August Olympics for Japan, who failed to go beyond the World Cup group stage for the third-straight time last year.
Japan faced an unfriendly Chinese crowd in drawing 1-1 with North Korea on the opening day of the East Asian Football Championship on Sunday.
Japan, Asia's No. 1 team, came under constant attack from Jong Tae-se, a Japan-born ethnic North Korean who plays for J-League Kawasaki Frontale.
He opened the scoring in the sixth minute and was a constant threat. But Ryoichi Maeda equalized in the 69th minute and saved Japan from a repeat of the nightmare in which they lost to North Korea 1-0 in the opener of the 2005 East Asian Cup.
Takeshi Okada, who began his second stint as Japan's national coach in November after his predecessor Bosnian Ivica Bosim suffered a stroke, said his squad lacked experience.
He missed Celtic playmaker Shunsuke Nakamura as well as three top domestic strikers, including former Frankfurt frontman Naohiro Takahara, who were injured or in poor form.
"It was a difficult match but our players came back to take risks and make chances," he said.
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