Japan defeat UAE for first football gold

GUANGZHOU: Japan defeated the United Arab Emirates 1-0 to win their first Asian Games football gold on Thursday.

South Korea earlier stunned Iran with three goals in the last 12 minutes to win the bronze medal match 4-3.

A rag-tag collection of 20 J-League reserve and college players, all under 21, the junior Blue Samurai beat the UAE 1-0 Thursday to complete their Asiad campaign with seven wins in seven games, boosted by 17 goals and just one against.

Kochi University defender Yuki Saneto, who slammed in the only goal in the gold medal match, said: "This team had been rated so low that everyone of us encouraged each other to fight with the spirit of weeds."

Kensuke Nagai, who scored five goals, including the winner in the 2-1 semi-final win over Iran, to win the Asiad golden boot, said: "Playing in a team called a second-string, I badly wanted to make people turn their heads."

"It feels kind of strange because we have done what even the 'golden generation' couldn't do," he added, referring to the Japanese side which finished runners-up to Spain at the 1999 world youth championship.

The 21-year-old Fukuoka University striker was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Chinese characters meaning 'weed'.

Japan's Asiad coach Takashi Sekizuka had to pick whoever could be spared by their clubs in the closing months of the J-League season.

His squad started training less than two weeks before the Games but Sekizuka plans to use most of his gold medal winners in qualifiers for the London Olympics.

"UAE proved very strong. We were pressured at times but we counted on Japan's hallmark of toughness to win the match," said 50-year-old Sekizuka, the coach of Kawasaki Frontale.