Asian Cup starts with expected win for Qatar, Klinsmann is looking for survival

The Asian Cup started with Qatar’s expected 3-0 home win over Lebanon, with goals coming from the scorers of Qatar’s last league and last Asian Cup, which Qatar won. Akram Afif scored in the 45th and 96th minutes and Almoez Ali added a goal in the 56th minute.

The opening match of the Asian Cup was played at the Lusail Stadium for 88,000 spectators who saw a very average match. After all, the most important battles and other favourites are yet to start at the Asian Championship. China and Tajikistan are still playing in the group with Qatar, who are briefly coached by Spanish smoke Tintin Marquez.

Perhaps the biggest favourites for the Asian Cup are the Japanese. They start this year’s Asian Cup on Sunday 14 January with a match against Vietnam (from 12.30 CET). Their coach is Hajime Moriyasu. Under his guidance, the Japanese national team has advanced twice from the preliminary group, and they have beaten Spain and Germany in the World Cup! At the World Championship they were eliminated after penalty shootouts against Croatia, who were playing well at the time.

Japan have won four of the last eight Asian Championships, the most of any of the participants, but the last one was won thirteen years ago. They have been waiting for success ever since and came closest to it at the last tournament, where they failed to make the final against Qatar and lost the final match 1:3.

Japan is a big favourite as they have players from the best European leagues – Kubo (Real Socieadad San Sebastian), Tomiyasu (Arsenal), Minamino (AS Monaco), Itakura from Bundesliga side Monchengladbach and Mitoma from Brighton or Ita from Reims in France.

Japan even had the audacity to leave out Tanaka, the scorer of the winning goal against Spain at the World Cup in Qatar, and Kamada from Lazio Roma in Italy did not even make the line-up. The captain of Japan is Endo from Liverpool, who has the now excellent Ito from VfB Stuttgart, who is currently playing for cups in the Bundesliga. Ueda of Feynoord of the Netherlands and Morita of Sporting Lisbon of Portugal are also in the set-up.

Japan starts the Asian Cup with Vietnam at the Al-Thumama Stadium, which has a capacity of forty thousand spectators and has already played the “Qatar” World Cup. Iraq and Indonesia are still in the group, so Japan won’t even take anything but first place.

South Korea won the Asian Championship title in the first two editions – 1956 and 1960. Four times since then, South Korea’s journey to a third Asian title has ended in the finals. Like their rivals Japan, they managed to advance out of the group stage at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but the then coach then relinquished his position and is now coaching the United Arab Emirates.

South Korea’s team was taken over, surprisingly enough, by former German international Jürgen Klinsmann. However, his tenure with the second best Asian team in the FIFA rankings did not start well for him. He failed to win five consecutive matches against South Korea and the fans started to react through the fact that he doesn’t even spend enough time with the team in Korea and spends most of his time in Germany.

But then the tide turned, and in qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, South Korea handled both China and Singapore without conceding a goal, and in a friendly, the Koreans beat Iraq with a clean sheet. They are one of the main favourites after Japan!

Who are the mainstays of South Korea? Son Heung-min (Tottenham), Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton), Lee Kang-in (PSG) and Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich).

And the main star? South Korea captain Son of Tottenham has been unstoppable in the Premier League this season, with twelve goals already and Hee-chan of Wolverhampton has ten. At the last tournament, the South Koreans already finished in the quarter-finals at the feet of the late winner from Qatar. Klinsmann’s future with the team is very uncertain. If South Korea fails to succeed at the Asian Cup, it will cost Jurgen Klinsmann his job as coach.

In the group stage, South Korea starts with a match against Bahrain on Monday 15 January at 12.30 CET at the Jassim bin Hamad Stadium. An interesting feature of this stadium is undoubtedly the fact that, in addition to cafes and restaurants, a mosque is present in this stadium with a capacity of fifteen thousand spectators. South Korea’s other opponents in the group are Malaysia and Jordan. Klinsmann’s survival on the coach’s bench is at stake and the Koreans should dominate the group.

The stalwart of the Asian Championships is Iran – a clear contender to advance from the group to the later stages. Amir Ghaleneoi, who replaced Carlos Queiroz in the spring, is back coaching this team after 17 years. Amir Ghaleneoi has not lost in eleven games -nine wins, two draws. Last year’s Asia Cup for Iran ended in the semifinals again, this time against Japan. Iran is the second highest ranked Asian country in the FIFA rankings and the statistics prove that they belong there with the highest number of participations and goals scored. They haven’t lost in the group stage since 1996 and, along with Saudi Arabia, hold the second highest number of triumphs in the tournament – three – but the last of those is ancient history, dating back to 1976.

The stars of the team are likely to be led by striker Mehdi Taremi (Porto) with Sardar Azmoun (AS Roma). The latter was given a chance at the club through injury after a lukewarm start, and now the Italian team has put a line through the budget with his departure.

Iran play their first group match on Sunday, January 15 at 6.30pm against Palestine. Iran also have the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong in the group, whom they beat easily 4-0 in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

Saudi Arabia has been waiting for another success at the Asian Cup for twenty-seven years. This year, they are undoubtedly the wider favourites – at the last World Cup in Qatar, they managed to beat Argentina in the group stage, but the effect was not there for them and the coach was replaced by the world-famous Robert Mancini, who, if victorious, would join his compatriot Alberto Zecheroni, who also managed to win the Italian league and the Asian Cup.

The team will be led from the captaincy by Salman al-Faraj and will be watched by talented youngster Firas al-Buraikana – an Al-Ahli star and Al-Hilal winger -Salemal-Dawsari. Asia’s most prized footballer of 2023 has already scored eleven goals with Al-Hilal this season. Although the Saudi Arabian league is undergoing a big change and a lot of quality players are coming in, but whether it’s better for Saudi footballers to train with the stars and not play or vice versa remains to be seen.

In the group they will meet Thailand, Kyrgyzstan and the strongest of the trio, Oman. The Saudis play their first match against Kyrgyzstan on Sunday, January twenty-first, at 6.30pm GMT.

Team Australia has been led again since 2018 by coach Graham Arnold, who returned to coaching the Australian national team after a successful career managing teams in Australia’s top competition. The story of the Australian team participating in the Asia Cup is quite understandable.

Until 2007, Australia played with Oceania teams. Despite having a quality roster and with ambitions of successfully qualifying for the World Cup, the Australians were forced to play teams a class below them, earning them a minimum number in the coefficient as the dominant team and having to battle it out in the play-offs with a team from South America for the World Cup. And almost every time, Australia’s football team failed.

The international football federation FIFA approved their bid. And they haven’t missed a world championship since. They may have been knocked out in the eighth round by Argentina in Qatar 2022, but the Australian team showed they can play football. So far, they’ve made it to the knockout stages of the Asian Championships every time, and in 2015 they even managed to win the whole tournament!

UPDATE: They will meet India, Syria and Uzbekistan in the group stage. Australia started with India on Saturday 13th January at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium for 40,740 spectators from CET and won 2:0.

Source: AFC