Jordan and Iraq won their openers in the Asian Cup
The Asian Cup is seeing games at their peak. The most recent one between Jordan and Malaysia ended with a final tally of 4-0. While Malaysia fell, Jordan is not more than confident about retaining their top spot in Group E. Their next contests are with South Korea and Bahrain.
Iraq, similarly, was able to beat Indonesia 3-1. That brings four goals in each football event, with the exception that Jordan could restrict their opponent to a goalless run for 90 minutes.
Three out of four goals came in the first half. One of them was scored through a penalty in the 18th minute. Only two players marked their nets: Mahmood Al-Mardi and Musa Al-Taamari. Mahmood scored the first goal, and a penalty followed shortly after. The next two games simply went on to seal the game for them.
Jordan’s win came at a time when they had the least possession of the ball. Malaysia kept attempting for a score but was in the drain. They took a total of eight shots; 3 of them were on target. Compared to that, Jordan made a better attempt since they took 14 shots, with 8 of them on target.
There were seven minutes over the usual run time, still insufficient for Malaysia to come back from the dead. Iraq assumed that the equalizer would pose a challenge. It didn’t when Osama Rashid navigated his way to the net in extra time after the 45-minute run. Yakob Sayuri assisted Marselino Ferdinan.
Multiple substitutions were made to make sure that Iraq was up and running no matter how long the game stretched. It was mainly after the first 45 minutes that the game went on a little longer. Otherwise, it was a pretty smooth ride for both sides till the point where Indonesia realized that the game was over and there was no coming back.
Jordan is now placed above South Korea in Group E. They share the same number of points; however, the goal difference for Jordan gives them the edge over South Korea’s 2 GD. Iraq is tied with Japan in both matters. It ranks second because of a lower GF and GA of 3 and 1, respectively.
As per the latest sports news, Japan cemented their position when the game of football went seamlessly for them with a tally of 4-2 against Vietnam. China sealed the game without scoring a goal. They didn’t let their opponent bring up anything on the scoreboard either. Hence, settling a game is a sweet disappointment.
India has lost to Australia by 2-0, and they now look to redeem the loss. The next two games are scheduled with Syria and Uzbekistan. These teams landed a goalless tie on matchday 1 of 3.
The next two games in the Asian Cup on matchday 1 of 3 to look out for are Thailand versus Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia versus Oman.