Early this morning, the AFC Asian Cup third place playoff match was played at Newcastle Stadium in Australia: the bout was between semifinal losers Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. The match, which was hotly contested, found the UAE overcoming Iraq 3-2 in regulation.

Now, UAE struck early with Ahmed Khalil scoring in the 16th minute, but Iraq quickly answered with two first half goals — the second coming 42 minutes in by Amjed Kalaf. And despite several early attempts to put the game further away, UAE was able to score two quick second half strikes with the final goal coming on a penalty kick in the 57th minute.

As for the finals, it is between the host nation Australia and the fairly dominant favorite Korea Republic. Kickoff will take place tomorrow morning, roughly 5 am EST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z308AnhoUdc

But the championship game comes with a bit of controversy: as plenty of angry Gulf nations are looking for a reason to kick Australia out of the Asian Football Confederation. The winner of the Asian Cup gets the title of champion of Asia. So besides the geographic problem with calling Australia the champion of Asia, these Gulf nations are complaining that Australia benefits from the Asian Cup involvement, but gives little in return. And at next year’s general assembly, excluding Australia could become a pressing issue.

At the same time, David Gallop, the chief executive of the Football Federation Australia, was quite shocked by these statements. “We are newcomers to AFC but our commitment to participate in competitions, membership of important AFC committees and general sharing of ideas and programs increases every year,” he said.  “We celebrate the diversity of the Asian region and this tournament has shown our contribution can go beyond football to create and foster social and political bridges between key trading partners in the region… Importantly, Australia is also in the top five markets for television rights in the entire confederation.” This basically shows how vital the Australian soccer team could be while moving forward: as more eyes will be watching the tournament with the country’s involvement.

However, Michael Brown, Asian Cups’ local organizing committee’s chief executive stated that the country has to do more: “Asian communities about are face-to-face relationships and building trust. We’ve gone a long way with the Asian Cup but it’s a long journey. This [tournament] is a small step.”

h/t: The Sydney Morning Herald

The AFC Asian Cup has been underway the last few weeks in the extremely hot-yet-beautiful Australian stadiums: between the Open, the Tour Down Under and this, Australia is the sports place to be at the moment.

Now, the last few weeks saw pool play, with Korea Republic, China, Iran and Japan winning their respective pools: the four teams who secured second were Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Australia.

And today — or technically yesterday if you are in Brisbane — the quarterfinals match ups got on their way: with Korea Republic defeating Uzbekistan 2-0 to advance to the semifinal round. The Korean team will next face the winner of Iran versus Iraq, which along with the other quarterfinals match will be played the night of January 23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFD-91uYVPM

As for the hosting team, Australian fans got a huge boost when their football team, currently ranked 100 in the world, beat the 96^th seeded China PR 2-0 in the quarterfinals. They secured the victory off of two goals — one a gorgeous bicycle-kick — by New York Red Bulls’ Tim Cahill. They are expected to play the winner of the Japan and United Arab Emirates match.

As for the AFC Asian Cup, it is held once every four years: and the winner is given, despite having Australia in the group, the title champion of Asia. It has been going on since 1956 and this year is the 16^th edition of the tournament — even though it started in 1956, in 2007 they changed the pattern because officials did not want it to be the same year as the Summer Olympics and European Football Championships. As for the team who has won it the most, Japan, who is also the defending champion, sits on top with four titles.