Match 19 - China v Japan
6th Asia Cup Women’s Hockey Championship - China v Japan (1-2)
Match Review - <Official Match Report>
Classification Match 3
(Semi Final 1) China vs Japan.
Final Result: China 1 Japan 2
Japan this afternoon, Saturday 8 September, pulled off the upset of the 6th Asia Cup Women’s Hockey Championships to date with a sensational 2-1 win over tournament favourites China at Kings Park Hockey Ground and book themselves a berth in tomorrow’s final against either Korea or India. China will now compete for the bronze medal in tomorrow’s playoffs
With all three goals coming in the first half, Japan surprisingly made the early running with an attack on the China goal mounted through hardworking forward Sachimi Iwao whose shot on goal was saved by China’s goalkeeper Zhang Yi Meng.
But with China beginning find more cohesion in their play, the team’s forwards forced a penalty corner that was converted Chen Zhao Xia in the 20th minute.
But from then on the game swung Japan’s way as the team tightened up their defence and began relying on breaking out to attack. And that paid dividends just 2 minutes later when Iwao again broke down the left and found Tomomo Komori relatively unmarked in the China circle to beat goakeeper Zhang and level the score at one goal each.
Japan kept up the pressure and in the 24th minute forced another penalty corner that Toshie Tsukui converted to give the underdogs a 2-1 lead at the interval.
Early in the second half China’s Tang Chun Ling came very close to levelling the score with a full blooded drive that was superbly saved by the Japanese keeper Ikuko Okamara.
But that was the last real threat to Japan’s lead and with mistakes beginning to creep into China’s play,the Japanese players defended superbly in the second half to survive two late China penalty corners shortly before the final whistle and hang on to win by 2 goals to China’s one.
Much of Japan’s victory can go to their Korean born coach Yoo Sueng Jin who took charge of the national women’s team in June last year after living in Japan for 12 years.
At 37 years, Yoo is the youngest national coach in Asia and is no stranger to international hockey himself having represented Korea at the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, 1990 Beijing Asian Games and Hiroshima Games with Korea taking gold in both Seoul and Hiroshima.
"We concentrated on defence in the match and blocked Chin’a midfield to break up their attacks " he said.
"Then we relied on counter attack to score which really worked for us" said a very happy coach Yoo after the game.
Result: China 1 : Japan 2 (Goal scorers: China Chen Zhao Xia; Japan, Tomomi Komori, Toshie Tsukui.)