Taiwan last night fought back with an outstanding team effort to seal a 4-2 win against Mongolia in their international friendly at the Taipei Municipal Stadium.
It was the first outing with Englishman Gary White in charge of the national squad, as well as his coaching team of fellow Britons: assistant coach Louis Lancaster, goalkeeping coach David Rouse and newly arrived fitness coach Scott Pearce.
White and his assistants will have their work cut out for them to prepare the team for the upcoming Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup Group E home-leg qualifier against Bahrain at the Taipei Municipal Stadium, as Taiwan need to overturn a five-point deficit from the away game in Bahrain last month.
Yesterday, fans had barely settled in their seats when Mongolia surprised the hosts with a quick counterattack in the fourth minute.
Attacking midfielder Tsagaantsooj Munkh-Erdene found space between two defenders to receive a cross from the right side and scuffed the ball, which bounced past Taiwan goalkeeper Pan Wen-chieh into the net.
It was shocking for visitors to take the early 1-0 lead, but seemed to awaken the hosts, who put in a more energetic display in search of goals.
Captain Chen Po-liang thought he had scored in the 17th minute, when he connected for a header on a corner-kick, but the ball hit the upright and was cleared by the Mongolia defense.
On the half-hour mark, Onur Dogan, a Turkish-born naturalized Republic of China citizen, broke through on the left side into the opposition box, but his shot was blocked by Mongolia’s goalkeeper.
The hosts were rewarded with the equalizer in the 41st minute, when Dogan made a short pass in front of the box to attacking midfielder Chen Hao-wei, who fired it into the net, leaving both sides entering the intermission at 1-1.
Taiwan started the second half with more purpose, pushing into the Mongolia side to create good opportunities.
In the 52nd minute, Dogan caused a goalmouth scramble and crossed it to Chen Po-liang, who lashed the ball home for the hosts’ second goal.
Four minutes later, Chen Hao-wei was tackled in the opposition box and the referee awarded the hosts a spot-kick, which Chen Po-liang converted for a 3-1 lead.
Mongolia striker Naranbold Nyam-Osor made Taiwan’s defense pay for an errant pass, blasting a shot into the net to make it 3-2 in the 75th minute.
Four minutes from time, Taiwan substitute Jiang Sin-long collected a cross and scored with his first shot for the hosts, securing the 4-2 victory.
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