Japan, Iran shun favouritism in Asian Cup
IRAN and Japan are both brushing off their favouritism tags for Friday’s Asian Cup quarter-finals.
IRAN and Japan are both brushing off their favouritism tags for Friday’s Asian Cup quarter-finals.
The highly-rated Iranians meet Iraq in Canberra while defending champions Japan clash with the United Arab Emirates in Sydney.
The winner of the Sydney stoush book a semi-final against Australia next Tuesday in Newcastle, with the Canberra victor meeting South Korea in Sydney on Monday.
The Socceroos downed China 2-0 and the Koreans beat Uzbekistan by the same scoreline in Thursday’s quarter-finals.
While Japan and Iran are both fancied to advance to the semi-finals, their respective coaches baulk at such talk.
“We know in a quarter-final there are no favourites,” Iran’s boss Carlos Queiroz said.
The unbeaten Iranians have defeated their arch rival Iraq in their past four meetings but Quieroz reckoned history was irrelevant.
“We know we are going to face a very difficult team to beat,” he said.
“We must be sure that we don’t undermine the value of the Iraqi team. We respect them a lot and we need to be on top of our best skills, our best performance, to be able to beat them.”
In Sydney, the Emirates face a stiff task to upset the unbeaten Blue Samurai, who didn’t concede a goal in their three group games.
But Japan’s coach Javier Aguirre was cautious about facing the Emirates.
“UAE have three or four good players,” Aguirre said.
“I will not name them as it is not fair to the rest of the team. They are all competitive.”
Aguirre’s key defender Yuto Nagatomo echoed the sentiment.
“We are in the knockout stage. One mistake can make a big difference,” he said.
“We must fight together. Everything we have worked for is in this moment.”