China are the winners of the 2010 East Asian Championship after host nation Japan went down to a ill-tempered 3-1 defeat in the tournament’s final game against South Korea in Tokyo yesterday evening.
Needing to better China’s 2-0 victory over Hong Kong earlier in the day to take their first ever honours in the competition, Japan got off to a perfect start when Yasuhito Endo fired home a 23rd minute penalty after Marcus Tulio Tanaka had been hauled to the ground by Korean defender Kang Min-Soo. The lead lasted just ten minutes, however, as Atsuto Uchida’s trip on Kim Bo-Kyung gave Lee Dong-Gook the chance to level from the spot - heralding eight minutes of madness that saw the hosts fall both a goal and a man down.
Lee Seung-Ryul’s speculative shot deflected off the back of Japan captain Yuji Nakazawa - making his 100th appearance for the national side - to give South Korea the lead on 39 minutes, before Tulio was sent off for allegedly aiming a kick at Kang Min-Soo moments later.
Japan rallied after the interval and were given a huge boost when numerical parity was restored with a second yellow card for visiting skipper Kim Jung-Woo, but once again struggled to create enough clear chances despite dominating much of the possession. Instead, it was the Koreans that broke down to the other end and sealed all three points courtesy of a fine curling effort from Kim Jae-Sung from the edge of the box with 20 minutes remaining.
Coach Takeshi Okada apologised for the performance after the game, but defiantly refused to change his opinion that a semi-final appearance at this summer’s World Cup remains a fair and realistic objective.
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Japan had gone into the final day in joint first place after beating Hong Kong 3-0 last Thursday thanks to a Keiji Tamada brace either side of a headed effort from Tulio, but it was China’s shock win by a similar scoreline over South Korea 24 hours earlier that ultimately proved most crucial. The title is China’s second from the four East Asian Championships held to date, while Japan - runners-up on all three previous occasions - were ultimately relegated to third.
East Asian Championship 2010 results
China 3-0 South Korea
Japan 3-0 Hong Kong
Hong Kong 0-2 China
Japan 1-3 South Korea
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