Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Yanji: China and Korea Republic both picked up their second wins of the AFC U-16 Championship 2016 qualifiers on Friday when the Group I hosts hammered Macau 10-0 and the South Koreans hit Chinese Taipei for six.
Having both picked up maximum points after the penultimate round of fixtures, the two will now meet on Sunday to determine have takes their place in next year’s finals in India and who must hope they have done enough to qualify as one of the four best second-placed teams.
Seven Chinese players got their names on the scoresheet with substitute Wu Zewei, who came on after the interval for Xie Long Fei, leading the way with a second-half hat-trick (50th, 73rd, 81st) while midfielder Zhou Jun Chen was close behind with a brace.
Zhou opened the scoring with eight minutes at the Yanji People’s Stadium played before scoring his second and China’s fourth in the 32nd minute after skipper Zhu Chen Jie (17th) and Chen Quanjiang (20th) had found the target.
Three minutes after Zhou had bagged his brace Chen Rong scored the fifth and final goal of the first half, with the midfielder taking his tally to two in as many games after scoring the winner in China’s narrow 1-0 victory over Chinese Taipei in Wednesday’s Group I opener.
Wu got China back on the scoring trail with the first of his hat-trick five minutes into the second half before Geng Tai Li became the sixth player from the home side to beat Macau keeper Lee Yew Hei when the forward made it 7-0 nine minutes later.
And after Wu had struck two more times fellow second-half substitute Sun Qin Han, who entered the fray in place of goalscorer Chen alongside Wu, took China into double figures two minutes into stoppage time.
Korea Republic boosted their goal difference in the later fixture at the Yanji People’s Stadium with a 6-0 defeat of Chinese Taipei, meaning that a draw on Sunday will be enough to see them top the group ahead of China.
With leading scorer Park Jeon-gin, who plundered six of the Koreans 17 against Macau to top the qualification scoring chart, rested for Wednesday’s clash, the two-time champions found the net three times in each half to record a comfortable victory.
Cheon Seong-hoon opened the scoring in the 19th before further goals from Kim Dong-bum (29th) and Yung Dong-hyun (37th) gave Korea Republic a commanding 3-0 lead to take intro the second half.
Park Chan-bin extended the lead in the 63rd minute before the South Korean skipper scored his second and his side’s fifth in the 70th minute, five minutes before Chinese Taipei were reduced to ten men following the sending off of midfielder Wu Meng-lin.
Korea Republic finally made their numerical advantage count two minutes into second-half stoppage time when Kim completed his double to score his side’s sixth of the match and 23rd in total as the East Asians went top of Group I with a vastly superior goal difference over China.
Ten group winners and four best second-placed teams will join DPR Korea, who topped the already concluded Group H, and India in next year’s finals, with the tournament hosts receiving an automatic qualification.
Should India finish top of their qualifying group or among the four best second-placed teams, the fifth best second-placed nation will qualify for the final competition.