The national men’s soccer team were eliminated from the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers after Indonesia beat them 3-0 on Monday, while the women’s national team are still in contention in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, and are training in Bahrain to take on Laos next week.
Taiwan’s women have arrived in Bahrain, after boarding their flight on Saturday. They are training to compete in Group A of the qualifiers against Laos on Monday. They then face hosts Bahrain on Sunday next week.
This round of matches doubles as Asia’s first-stage qualifier for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is to be hosted by Australia and New Zealand in 2023.
Photo courtesy of CTFA
To qualify, they will need to finish in the top seven in Asia. The top five teams qualify automatically, while the other two would have to compete for a spot in a 10-team playoff tournament.
In the men’s match, Taiwan crashed out in the playoff round, losing 3-0 in their second match against Indonesia’s Tim Garuda, after an earlier 2-1 defeat against them. Both matches took place in Buriram, Thailand.
Taiwan were outplayed in both matches, as Tim Garuda, with their quicker pace, put Taiwan under constant pressure, exploiting their defensive errors.
On Monday, midfield dynamo Egy Maulana Vikri opened the scoring for Indonesia in the 26th minute, when he floated a cross from the edge of the penalty area, which bounced past Taiwan goalkeeper Derek Shih.
Although he might have been distracted by forward Dedik Setiawan trying to land a header while closely marked by defender Lin Cheng-yi, Shih should have done better and reacted too late.
Indonesia held onto their 1-0 advantage until halftime, while Taiwan tried to get back into the game.
Ten minutes into the second half, Tim Garuda captain Evan Dimas raced in from the right flank, sending in a low cross, which got behind Taiwan defender Chen Ting-yang, whose back-heel flick headed straight to Indonesia midfielder Ricky Kambuaya just inside the box, and he blasted the ball into roof of the net.
It was a pivotal goal, which killed off any realistic chance Taiwan had of advancing, but they did not give up, battling on in search of scoring chances.
Taiwan pressured the opposition, pushing into the final third, but their players seemed out of sync and could not find a goal as the clock ticked down.
Three minutes into added time, midfielder Witan Sulaeman latched onto a pass on the right wing, surging forward past a defender to fire home Indonesia’s third goal.
Indonesia advanced into the third round of the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.
“We made changes for this match, looking to score a goal first in the first half... Our team had some early opportunities, but could not capitalize, and we could not sustain our offensive,” Taiwan interim manager Yeh Hsien-chung said. “Indonesia used their chances well, when our side made defensive errors, but that is all part of the game.”
“Alhough we lost the two matches, several young players have performed well, and they could become pillars for [the team] to build on,” Yeh said.
“It is good for these young players to gain international experience, which will help their development,” he added.
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