{"id":30940,"date":"2019-01-28T19:22:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T19:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30940"},"modified":"2019-01-28T19:22:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T19:22:54","slug":"japan-beats-iran-to-reach-asian-cup-football-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30940","title":{"rendered":"Japan beats Iran to reach Asian Cup football final"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Japan<\/a> will play for a record fifth Asian Cup title after beating Iran<\/a> 3-0 to reach the final.<\/p>\n

Striker Yuya Osako scored twice in 11 second-half minutes to help four-time champions Japan beat tournament favourites on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Osako headed in the first goal in the 56th minute and added his second from the penalty spot to help set up a date with either hosts the\u00a0<\/span>United Arab Emirates<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/span>Qatar<\/a>\u00a0in Friday’s final.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Genki Haraguchi put a gloss to the scoreline with a powerful run and shot in stoppage time at the end of the match but the contest was already long decided.<\/span><\/p>\n

Japan has been rebuilding under coach Hajime Moriyasu after reaching the knockout stage at the World Cup in Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We knew it was going to be tough but the players showed great fighting spirit,” said Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m happy the players showed that fighting spirit and really went for the win.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran missed forward Mehdi Taremi, who had scored three goals in this Asian Cup.<\/p>\n

Carlos Queiroz announced in the post-match news conference that his nearly eight-year run as Iran coach, which took in two World Cups, was over.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think the simplest thing to do is to copy the old song: ‘and now, the end is here’,” the 65-year-old Portuguese said, misquoting the song Frank Sinatra made famous.<\/p>\n

“I’m happy and proud to say I did it my way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan will play for a record fifth Asian Cup title after beating Iran 3-0 to reach the final. Striker Yuya Osako scored twice in 11 second-half minutes to help four-time champions Japan beat tournament favourites on Monday. Osako headed in the first goal in the 56th minute and added his second from the penalty spot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}