China lost 0-1 to North Korea on the afternoon of September 24, but Indonesia still passed the group stage as the third-placed team with the best record. This added to the difficulties for Vietnam before the match against Saudi Arabia.
* Goal scorer: Kim Yu-song 40'.
Indonesia played poorly against North Korea at Jinhua Stadium. After many times of escaping defeat, in the 40th minute, the Southeast Asian team was finally scored by Kim Yu-song. But that was also the only goal they conceded in the match. From the 65th minute, Indonesia played slowly to preserve the score, as they seemed to know the result of the match at the same time in Group F.
Taiwan only needed a draw or a narrow loss to Kyrgyzstan to secure their place in the next round. The advantage came in the 35th minute when Chen Po Liang opened the scoring from the penalty spot, but individual mistakes saw them lose 1-4.
Indonesia advanced to the group stage of the 19th Asian Games despite losing two consecutive matches against Taiwan and North Korea. Photo: PSSI
From second place, Taiwan dropped to the bottom of the table with three points, equal to Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan due to a worse goal difference of -4 compared to 0. Kyrgyzstan took second place in the table due to being better than Indonesia in the next ranking criterion of number of goals, with four goals compared to the opponent's two.
Despite finishing third, Indonesia are still certain to qualify for the knockout stages. They currently sit top of the third-placed group with three points and a goal difference of +1 thanks to their 2-0 win over Kyrgyzstan. This group only counts the results of the top three teams, as there are only three teams in the group. Meanwhile, Qatar in Group D has three teams that have completed their fixtures and have only one point.
Indonesia's result narrows the opportunity for Vietnam, before facing Saudi Arabia in the match at 6:30 p.m. today. Even if there is a draw, coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his team cannot decide for themselves because it depends on the results of other groups, especially group A with Myanmar and India.
This is the second consecutive time Indonesia has advanced to the group stage of the Asian Games. In the previous edition at home, they topped Group A but were eliminated in the round of 16 after losing 3-4 to the UAE in a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw in 120 minutes.
Even though they passed the group stage this time, coach Indra Sjafri and his team's chances of advancing are not high because they will face defending champions Korea on September 27.
Hieu Luong
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