Asian Cup perspective from top teams

Up to this point, the first knockout round of the 2023 Asian Cup has ended with the entry into the quarterfinals of the continent's top teams such as Korea, Japan, Iran, Australia, Qatar, Uzbekistan and two surprising names, Jordan and Tajikistan. Teams that played well in the group stage but were quickly eliminated in the round of 16 include Iraq, Thailand, and UAE. To see, this continental tournament has more or less caused interesting surprises and the quarterfinal round between strong teams such as Korea-Australia, Iran-Japan, Qatar-Uzbekistan or Tajikistan-Jordan will certainly attract the attention of experts and fans near and far.

What needs to be recognized is that although they have advanced to the next round in a fierce competition, the top teams still have things that need to be corrected and renewed if they do not want to pack their bags and go home early. Any strong team through practice shows its “Achilles’ heel”, which is easily countered and exploited by opponents. These are individual mistakes, systematic errors, slow handling of situations by the coaching staff... all of which have made the whole team pay the price in recent matches.

There are positions that do not create the necessary peace of mind such as goalkeeper Suzuki or central midfielder Endo of the Japanese team. It is no coincidence that the media calls Suzuki the "Onana version" (Manchester United goalkeeper) with mistakes in matches with the Vietnamese team in Tuan Hai's goal, mistakes leading to a loss in the round of 16 match with Bahrain... In general, this goalkeeper has conceded goals in all matches at the Asian Cup, respectively with the Vietnamese team, the Indonesian team, especially the loss against the Iraqi team and the recent match against the Bahrain team. Meanwhile, central midfielder Endo, who is playing well for Liverpool (Premier League), has not played consistently in this tournament. In the match with Bahrain, Endo repeatedly handled the ball incorrectly, was slow and many times let the opponent steal the ball, strongly threatening the home team's goal...

Another top continental team, South Korea, also failed to reassure home fans in this tournament. A series of stars are playing brilliantly in European football tournaments, but it is unclear why they are playing so unconvincingly in the continent. The most typical is striker Son Heung-Min, who has only scored 2 goals from the 11m mark, and what many people are waiting for is the brilliance of a striker who won the Premier League Golden Boot a few seasons ago, but has been in vain? Of course, Son's role in the Korean National Team and Tottenham is not the same as he is assigned different tasks. But clearly, Son Heung-Min is still not the "best version" that many people expect and all hopes are still placed on this player to bring the Korean team to the final?

The Iranian team, with a squad of famous players competing in Europe, easily passed the group stage but had to sweat to get a ticket to the quarter-finals after being equalized by the underdog Syria in 90 minutes, getting a red card, so it was extremely difficult in 2 extra periods and only thanks to luck in the penalty shootout. The Uzbekistan team was clearly subjective and underestimated, so they let the Southeast Asian team Thailand equalize in the beginning of the second half of the round of 16 match and had to work very hard to maintain the fragile score of 2-1...

It is also to see that despite being far apart on the rankings in Asia and the world, strong teams do not easily get tickets to the next round, especially when playing in the knockout round. The Asian Cup is a big tournament, so it is necessary to calculate for the long term because no one can avoid cards, injuries or form drops. Let's look at the calculations of the two leading teams, Japan and Korea, to know and wait to see how effective they are. In the Japanese team, stars like Tomiasu (Arsenal), Mittoma (Brighton)... were not released from the beginning of the tournament and they are certainly being "incubated" for the intense, decisive matches in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. As soon as Japan lost 1-2 to Iraq in the group stage, Korea carefully calculated to avoid meeting their annoying neighbor in the round of 16 and although they had to face Saudi Arabia and go through a penalty shootout, they succeeded in their calculation of "avoiding the elephant without losing face" in the long term. Similarly, the story of Son Heung-Min still refusing to shine, is it because he is hiding to wait for an opportunity in the upcoming tense and nerve-wracking rounds?

And what needs to be said is that the top continental teams have been going through the story of naturalizing players, sending talented players abroad to compete... for a long time now, so they are almost equal, fair opponents, reaching the world level. Remember, Japan currently has 63 players playing in Europe, of which 15 are playing in the top 5 leagues of the old continent; the similar numbers for Australia are 32 and 2, Korea is 18 and 8, Iran is 22 and 1, Uzbekistan is 11 and 1... That proves that their national tournaments have the necessary quality and class, enough for many people to compete abroad and the national team will be the gathering of outstanding players, along with a talented coach, a defined playing style...

Watch and reflect on the Asian Cup, especially from the top teams mentioned above, to see the obvious lessons from Korea, Japan, Thailand and Indonesia, to nurture dreams with fundamental, long-term actions, knowing how to accept failure and knowing how to rise up…/.