Iran, Japan in finals

Manama : Iran and Japan qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup finals in South Korea after reaching the semi-finals at the AFC U-19 Championship.

Reza Jafari scored in the 14th and 74th minutes to give Iran a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Uzbekistan in a quarter-final tie at Khalifa Sports City Stadium in Isa Town.

The National Stadium hosted yesterday’s last quarter-final match where Koki Ogawa fired a brace in Japan’s resounding 4-0 win over Tajikistan and with it a place in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Korea Republic 2017.

Goals from Ogawa (8th minute) and Ritsu Doan (18th) before the break handed the Japanese a handy two-goal advantage in the first half before further goals from Ogawa (73rd) and strike partner Yuto Iwasaki (88th) an unassailable lead at the National Stadium in Riffa.

The semi-finals are now scheduled for Thursday when Japan takes on Vietnam, who stunned hosts Bahrain 1-0 in the quarter-finals on Sunday when Tran Thanh lobbed the ball over Bahrain goalkeeper Yousif Habib.

Saudi Arabia had earlier defeated Iraq to become the first nation to qualify for the 2017 World Cup after a clinical 6-5 penalty shoot-out victory over Iraq in a neck-and- neck clash.

Regular time ended 2-2 with all goals scored in the second-half, as the Saudis fired twice in space of four minutes through Rakan Al Anaze (65th) and Abdulrahman Elyasu (69th ).

Iraq came back strong thanks to Sajjad Hussain (75th) and then Mazen Fayyad (80th) fired the equalizer to level the scores.