|
BEIJING, July 31, Iraq China powered into the semi-finals of the Asian Cup here Friday with a 3-0 victory over ten-man Iraq as tiny Bahrain reached the last four with a penalty shoot-out win against Uzbekistan.
The Chinese advanced to a showdown against either South Korea or Iran next Tuesday thanks to a first-half strike from Hao Haidong and two late penalties from Zheng Zhi as Iraq lost their cool in a fierce contest.
The closing minutes were marred by an ugly 20-man brawl sparked by a clash between China's Manchester City star Sun Jihai and Qusay Munir, and the sending off of Iraq keeper Ahmed Ali for an off-the-ball incident with Sun.
But it couldn't take the shine off a classy display by China, who were always on top in front of 62,000 fans at the Workers Stadium.
China's Dutch coach Arie Haan -- who has modelled his side's attacking gameplan on the famous 'total football' Netherlands teams he graced in the 1970s -- went away a happy man.
Veteran striker Hao opened the scoring for the hosts, the 33-year-old netting with a cool finish on eight minutes before Zheng made sure of the result with an 81st minute spot-kick.
In Friday's other quarter-final Bahrain made Uzbekistan pay for their failure to practice spot-kicks when they prevailed 4-3 in the shoot-out after the two teams had finished extra time level at 2-2.
The rank tournament outsiders advanced to the last four for the first time in their history where they will play either Japan or Jordan after a pulsating 120 minutes of action.
Bahrain's fairytale run looked to be coming to an end when they missed their second penalty to leave their opponents from the former Soviet Union holding the advantage.
But amid unbearable tension, Marat Bikmoev blazed Uzbekistan's fourth penalty over the bar and Leonid Koshelev screwed the fifth spot-kick wide to hand victory to the Bahrainis.
|