Al Shehri upbeat despite Saudi Arabia's AFC U-19 Championship defeat

Following a scoreless 120 minutes, Koki Ogawa scored the winning penalty for the Japanese after Abdullah Magrshi had sent his spot kick high over Ryosuke Kojima’s goal just seconds earlier as Japan won the title for the first time.

“The championship went well for us because we qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup next year and also, tonight, my team played their best game in the whole championship, but unfortunately it went to penalties and anything can happen,” said Al Shehri. “But I hope this competition will motivate the players because they played well.

“Throughout the championship we faced many strong teams and we couldn’t get our players to have a rest or to have a recovery. But what is important now is to motivate the players and make them proud of what they did.

“Japan had the strongest defence at this competition, but we created four chances against them, we just didn’t have the luck to score unfortunately. Now we want everyone to be behind them, to support them and to show that they are behind them.”