Much has been made over Qatar being awarded hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup. Whether you felt it was earned fairly or not (it wasn’t), at the time everyone agreed the 2022 host would be the worst ever in terms of footballing quality. Then again, maybe not based on the latest Qatar FIFA ranking.
For those who follow the Chinese Super League, this will come as little surprise. The rest of the footballing world, however, will be wondering who is Wu Lei after 40 million fans tuned in to watch his LaLiga debut with Espanyol on Sunday.
No one in the region seemed to want this to happen — even fewer (outside of Xavi) expected it — but Qatar is the best team in Asia.
With its fans banned from the host country due to diplomatic tensions in the Middle East, a tiny population and little footballing tradition prior to FIFA awarding the nation 2022 World Cup hosting rights, Qatar’s 3-1 victory over Japan in the AFC Asian Cup final capped an unlikely run to the Maroons’ first-ever major soccer championship.
And they did it in some style, with two incredible first-half goals.
Over the last four MLS seasons, few players terrified defenses like Sebastian Giovinco. His speed on the ball, clinical finishing and deadly free kicks made him one of the best strikers from the day he joined the league in 2015.
The AFC Asian Cup final is set. Japan, the winningest team in the history of the competition, will take on Qatar, trying to prove it can actually play the sport before hosting the 2022 World Cup. But Qatar making it through the AFC Asian Cup Semifinals did not come without controversy.
Qatar reached the AFC Asian Cup semifinals by edging South Korea in the Maroons’ first big upset of the tournament, although you could argue Qatar beating Saudi Arabia was a pretty big upset too.
In a sequence of events that involved one man taking a ball to the face, another shanking the hell out of an overhead kick and a third connecting sweetly with a chilena of his own, we witnessed football’s most spectacular sight three times inside five seconds in the video above.
It’s not often you encounter a team with this kind of chutzpah. Usually, someone would opt for an approach other than the most notoriously advanced skill in the game, but these boys showed that anything other than a bicycle kick is simply a waste of time.
Heading into Friday’s quarterfinals of the AFC Asian Cup, South Korea and Australia were widely expected to advance past underdog opponents. One brilliant long-range strike and one unforgivable error later, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are preparing to face off in next week’s semifinals.
Remember Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand? During last summer’s World Cup, he garnered global attention when denying Cristiano Ronaldo his fifth goal of the tournament with a save from the penalty spot.
Australia, the defending champion of the AFC Asian Cup, almost came undone at the group stage of the 2019 edition due to one of the most ludicrous penalty decisions you’ll ever see at a major international tournament (as you’ll soon see, VAR is obviously not in use out in the United Arab Emirates).
After suffering a shock defeat to Jordan to open group play, a 3-0 victory over Palestine on Match Day 2 had eased the pressure on the Socceroos, but a result still needed to be secured Tuesday against Syria.
Kazuyoshi Miura, the oldest player to score in soccer in a professional match, will get a chance to improve upon his Guinness World Record with the J2 League kicks off the upcoming season.
Miura signed a new deal with Yokohama FC in Japan’s second division on Thursday. King Kazu, who will turn 52 in February, has been a part of the club for nearly 15 years.