By paladisious - 21 Aug 2018 1:18 AM
Group stage complete, there's been a few surprises! Definitely worth keeping an eye on as this is what we're up against next year in Olympics qualifiers.
Vietnam still strong at youth level, finishing on top of Japan in their group with a win over the latter.
Malaysia also making it out of the group with a win over South Korea (who finished first), Indonesia coming back from their suspension topping their (admittedly weaker) group, and Myanmar getting a win over Iran, unlucky not to qualify with all teams in their group (also including North Korea and Saudi) all ending up on 4 points.
The rise of South East Asia?
The absolute best result of all though is Qatar coming dead last in their group with Bangladesh qualifying after beating them. Their home World Cup generation is coming through nicely lol.
China topping their group in straight sets with wins over Syria, UAE and East Timor.
Syria and Palestine the only two Arab countries to get a top two group finish (although Saudi, UAE and Bahrain join Hong Kong in getting a best four out of six third-place qualifiers, which is harsh on Myanmar as they got a better result than UAE and Bahrain, I think that rule needs a looking at).
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By paladisious - 30 Aug 2018 12:38 PM
South Korea v Japan in the final, Vietnam v UAE in the bronze medal playoff.
It took a penalty shootout for UAE to prevent the semi finals being an exclusively Eastern affair, eliminating North Korea. The UAE also scraped through on penalties against Indonesia prior to that.
With Malaysia's win over South Korea, (plus Japan only beating them 1-0 in the Ro16 with an 89th minute penalty), Myanmar beating Iran and most surprisingly of all Bangladesh beating Qatar the future looks good for South East Asia, most of all for Vietnam who won all three of their group games against Japan, Pakistan and Nepal and went on to beat Bahrain and Syria keeping a clean sheet throughout before falling to South Korea in the semis.
Saudi beating China 4-3 was the only win for the West over the East in regular or extra time in the knockout stage.
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