Alkass Digital
Kim Min-woo’s header 15 minutes from time earned Korea Republic a 1-0 win over Japan to seal top spot in Group B of the AFC U23 Asian Cup Qatar 2024™ at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium on Monday and set up a quarter-final meeting with Indonesia.
Japan, meanwhile, will take on hosts Qatar in their last eight encounter on Thursday after finishing in second place in the standings, with Go Oiwa’s side suffering their first defeat of the competition.
Kim scored 17 minutes after being introduced from the bench by head coach Hwang Sun-hong during a game that had looked destined for long periods to end in a draw as both teams had already secured their spots in the knockout rounds.
The Japanese began positively with Yu Hirakawa troubling the Korean defence down the left flank only for his cutback from the bye-line to be intercepted before reaching Ryotaro Araki.
The Machida Zelvia winger was Japan’s more promising outlet throughout the opening 45 minutes, pushing forward after Kota Takai’s header to bend a shot from 25 yards that only just cleared Baek Jong-bum’s crossbar.
It was from Hirakawa’s corner that Baek was almost caught out, the ball coming out of the sun from behind the stand to confuse the goalkeeper before he gratefully gathered close to the goal line.
With their top scorer Lee Young-jun on the bench, the Koreans carried a minimal threat until a minute before the interval when Hong Si-hoo slid the ball into Jeong Sang-bin and he set up Hong Yun-sang to strike, but Takai’s challenge snuffed out the danger.
Kang Seong-jin went closest to finding a way through for the Koreans in the 67th minute, glancing his header midway through the half wide of Taishi Nozawa’s goal after being expertly picked out by Hong Yun-sang from the right flank.
That sparked the Japanese back into life with substitute Kuryu Matsuki releasing Kotaro Uchino and prompting Baek to race from his goal-line to clear. Moments later Takai steered his header from Matsuki’s left wing cross wide of the target.
In the 75th minute, however, Korea took the lead. Lee Tae-seok’s corner was swung over from the right towards the far post and Kim was left unattended to power his header down past Nozawa.
Kim almost doubled the lead six minutes later, Nozawa dropping to his left to steer a low shot around the post while at the other end Kein Sato fired over the bar after Mao Hosoya’s effort was blocked.
Japan kept pushing with Joel Chima Fujita’s effort deflected off target and Hosoya heading directly at Baek, while Sato’s header hit the post in a frantic finish but the Koreans held on.