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Statistically, the Asian Cup looked wonderfully neat and tidy – the kind of order that you might expect at a Japanese teahouse.
At the end of the group stage, every group winner had won three out of three games, every second place getter had two wins out of three, all third placed sides had just one victory and last place had lost all three.
The last place-getters in Groups A, B and C all recorded a goal difference of minus five, and Palestine, last place in Group D, were minus 10.
Even the first two quarter finals had a sense of symmetry, with both South Korea and Australia recording 2-0 wins. However, the first hint of disorder was to be found when South Korea and Uzbekistan finished level after 90 minutes – the first time a game has been drawn in the entire tournament.
Friday night blew all that neatness and order away in a hurricane of scintillating football. Iran and Iraq played quite simply one of the most thrilling matches seen in many years in any tournament. The history of these two ancient civilisations is extraordinary but their football history was enhanced by a 3-3 draw which could only be separated by a penalty shootout, won 7-6 by Iraq in a scoreline more familiar to the Australian Open tennis.
When Sardar Azmoun opened the scoring for Team Melli after 23 minutes, it seemed that the classy Iranians, who had not conceded a goal in their group, were on their way. However, a hasty decision by Australian referee Ben Williams to issue a second yellow card to Iranian left back Mehrdad Pooladi changed the course of the match in the 42nd minute.
Ahmed Yasin levelled the game just before the hour but the Iranians, playing like the Italy of Asia (to borrow a quote from SMH journalist Dominic Bossi), dropped deep and soaked up the Iraqi pressure with two banks of four and a lone striker, surviving the 90 minutes.
Extra time produced more thrills than a Luna Park rollercoaster as Iraq went ahead twice only to be pegged back by their near-neighbours and former bitter enemies on the political and military battlefield. A chaotic goalmouth scramble in the last minute of extra time saw Reza Ghoochannejhad score for Team Melli to take the game to the penalty spot. It was there that Iraq, with one of the more amazing football histories of recent times, triumphed. The cup had its first shock.
Almost three hours later, it got another, but this was even bigger. Japan, holders, hot favourites, and Asia’s highest ranked nation were eliminated by the United Arab Emirates in another thriller.
The old saying goes that if this was a boxing match, the referee would have called it off and awarded the game to Japan via TKO. After going ahead through Ali Ahmed Mabkhout just seven minutes into the game, UAE spent the rest of the match being battered by Samurai Blue, statistically, and in the football sense.
The last time a game had been so one-sided was on a fateful night for Australian football in November 1997. Gaku Shibasaki’s 81st minute equaliser was as inevitable as a rejected Liberal Party budget amendment and we all waited for UAE to crumble like a children’s sandcastle in a Christmas king tide.
When they survived all the way through a pulsating extra time, in which UAE hardly managed to string two passes together, there was a sense that this courageous rearguard action might still reap a reward. When Japan’s best player, Keisuke Honda, stepped up to take the first penalty and ballooned it to a family member in Row W of the Stadium Australia stand, the upset was on.
He got so much distance and height on the shot, it made a mockery of his criticism of the lack of time between games – he was obviously not too tired to send a shot into orbit. Iraq faltered but then, just to complete this night of chaos and disorder, Japan’s other world-renowned playmaker Shinji Kagawa hit the post, rangy substitute Dhurgham Ismail stepped up to bury his spot kick and send the favourites home.
Disorder and chaos. And a night of football that won’t be easily forgotten.
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