Taiwan netted two goals in the second half against a scoreless, 10-man Mongolia in Guam yesterday to win their second game of the East Asia Football Federation (EAFF) Championship qualifying tournament.
Taiwan coach Toshiaki Imai started with a 4-5-1 formation as he had in their first game on Thursday, but made five personnel changes, including resting in-form striker Wu Chun-ching in favor of Tseng Chih-wei and replacing goalkeeper Chiu Yu-hung with Pan Wen-chieh.
The five midfielders did not dominate the field and boss the opposition around as they had in their impressive 8-1 victory over the Northern Mariana Islands in the previous match, with the more experienced Mongolia players fighting for every inch of territory and forcing a scoreless stalemate in the first half.
Photo provided by Chinese Taipei Football Association
The second half began with more open play, both sides having good chances in front of goal.
In the 52nd minute, Mongolia forward Bayarjargal Oyunbat was sent clear in front of goal, but goalkeeper Pan made a good save from a close-range shot.
Five minutes later, Taiwan took advantage of a counterattack, with midfielder Lin Chien-hsun collecting a long pass on the left side of box and beating two defenders and shooting into the far corner to put them in front.
In the 71st minute, the referee sent off Mongolia striker Murun Altankhuyag, judging him to have chopped down Taiwan defender Huang Wei-min during a goal-mouth scramble.
Three minutes later, Mongolia nearly scored through Oyunbat, who dribbled past the defense, rounded Pan and shot on target, only to see defender Huang Wei-min make a sliding, goal-line clearance to preserve a clean sheet.
Taiwan grabbed their second goal near the end of the game when midfielder Lin Shih-kai made no mistake on a rebound to drive into the net from right side of the box.
Taiwan face Macau tomorrow in their final game of the qualifying tournament.
In yesterday’s other result, Macau collected their first win by defeating the Northern Mariana Islands 3-1.
In the tournament opener on Thursday, Macau and Mongolia played out a 2-2 draw.
Taiwan will advance to next round of the EAFF if they beat Macau.
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
LACKLUSTER FIGHT: At one stage, the referee lost patience with the two fighters, warning them in the fourth round that ‘the fans did not pay to see this crap’ Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in their controversial Netflix-backed bout in Miami. The fight at the Kaseya Center, which saw both men reportedly splitting a mammoth purse of US$184 million, had triggered alarm across boxing due to the gulf in physical size and class between Britain’s two-time former world champion Joshua and Paul, an Internet personality who has forged a lucrative career through a handful of novelty boxing contests. However, in the event, Joshua made hard work of defeating his vastly less accomplished opponent, before his superior size and power eventually told
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were ordered on Tuesday by a French labor court to pay their former forward Kylian Mbappe up to 61 million euros (US$71.6 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses. France captain Mbappe, who left PSG in June last year to join Real Madrid, had been claiming more than 260 million euros in total from his former club. PSG in turn had demanded Mbappe pay them 440 million euros. Mbappe, 26, also claimed the Qatari-owned reigning European champions had applied the wrong French legal classification to his contract, but that was rejected by the court. The labor court said
TOOTHLESS: Bologna never looked like finding a way back, and Antonio Conte and his substitutes were waiting to celebrate long before the final whistle SSC Napoli on Monday lifted the Italian Supercoppa with a 2-0 win over Bologna in Riyadh, David Neres netting both goals to earn the league champions a deserved victory over the toothless Coppa Italia winners. Neres opened the scoring with a stunning strike from distance six minutes before halftime and found the net again in the 57th minute when Bologna were caught trying to play out of defense. “We came here as champions of Italy, we wanted this trophy and we showed it with a great performance,” Napoli forward Matteo Politano told Mediaset. “We could have scored a few more goals, but
RSS