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(Sports)Reigning Asian Cup champions Japan ready to quell UAE's feisty challenge

Xinhua, January 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Japan is playing for its second consecutive Asian Cup trophy on Friday, but the United Arab Emirates will be out to steal their thunder.

The two teams battled in the group D versus group C winner's quarter final match at Sydney's Stadium Australia.

Coaches for both sides displayed confidence in pre-match press conferences on Thursday.

"I hope that we score the first goal tomorrow (Friday) and, of course, for the Japan team the defense line has not been tested in the last three games," said UAE's coach Mahdi Ali.

"But the game is different. We play different football to the teams who have played Japan and we will try to do our best.

"Friday's game will be a very tough game for both sides and I hope that both teams give the maximum they have in the game so that all the fans have all the excitement and joy of watching this game.

"We are ready, we have only one player missing from this game, and that's Walid Abbas because of two yellow cards, and we don't have any injuries. We hope that we make a good result."

Both teams are obviously focussed on victory in the crucial match, one to show they can go on to do it again, the other to show they just might cause a tournament upset and progress further.

Japan completed a clean sweep on Tuesday with a 2-0 triumph over skillful team Jordan.

"UAE have three or four good players," Aguirre said at the pre- match conference on Thursday. "I will not name them, as it is not fair to the rest of the team. They are all competitive."

He said he did not differentiate between the UAE and Iran, the team they could have faced in this quarter final play-off.

Japan's goal-scoring midfielder Shinji Kagawa will be a key in Japan's defense of the Asian Cup football title.

"I am very happy for Shinji," his coach said. "I asked him to make runs into the box and get in goal-scoring positions. I told him to focus on scoring rather than on creating chances for other players.

"The goal will give him confidence, but I have not seen a change in his behavior." Endi