U23 Indonesia - U23 Iraq (10:30 p.m. today): Decisive battle for Olympic ticket

(Dan Tri) - The winning team in the 3rd place match of the 2024 U23 Asian Cup will win the continent's last official ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics. Will history call U23 Indonesia or U23 Iraq?

*The match between U23 Indonesia and U23 Iraq will take place at 10:30 p.m. on May 2 (Vietnam time), at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha (Qatar). Dan Tri will report this match online. In history, Indonesian football has participated in the Olympics once, that was in 1956, in Melbourne (Australia). That time, the team of the archipelago country reached the quarter-finals of the men's football event, thanks to being exempted from the first round.

U23 Indonesia determined to win tickets to the Olympics (Photo: AFC).

Since then, Indonesian football has never returned to this playground. That is why Indonesians are very eager to win tickets to the Olympics. However, the most important thing for the Indonesian U23 team before the match with U23 Iraq is spirit. The more frustrated the Indonesian football community is with the referee's decisions, surrounding the match with Uzbekistan in the semi-finals on April 29, the more difficult it is for the Indonesian U23 team to play. In fact, the situations where the Indonesian team had their goal denied by VAR or the captain Rizky Ridho received a red card against Uzbekistan were not unjust. Their players committed a foul before VAR detected it and the referee punished the Indonesian U23 team. Therefore, no matter how much the Indonesian football community argues, it cannot change the result of the match, on the contrary, it can make their U23 team more frustrated and have more difficulty playing.

Midfielder Witan Sulaeman is the hope of U23 Indonesia (Photo: AFC).

If U23 Indonesia can keep their cool, they still have their own strengths. For example, in terms of physique, U23 Indonesia with many naturalized players from Europe is not afraid of the physique of Iraqi players. Technically, young Indonesian players are improving, they have two talented attacking midfielders, Marselino Ferdinan and Witan Sulaeman, who are capable of causing trouble for the U23 Iraq defense, as they did for the U23 Korea defense. Overall, U23 Iraq is still rated higher than U23 Indonesia, thanks to the better physique of the players from West Asia. However, the team from the archipelago still has its own strengths as mentioned. Coach Shin Tae Yong's team still has a chance to surprise the representative of West Asian football. No one wants to lose this match, because if they lose, one of the two teams will have to play a play-off match for a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics with the representative of African football. Indonesia seem to have a huge desire to reach the Olympics, so believe that they will do everything they can to win the final official ticket of Asian football. Prediction: U23 Indonesia win 2-1

Dantri.com.vn

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/u23-indonesia-u23-iraq-22h30-hom-nay-quyet-dau-vi-tam-ve-du-olympic-20240502010753308.htm