The victories and goal tallies of the "favorites" accurately reflect their playing style and their "play to win" mentality. Central Asian teams like Tajikistan or Uzbekistan also clearly demonstrate the long-standing characteristic of this region: not overly strong, but never weak either. Both of these teams drew 0-0 in their first matches.
The host team Qatar (number 11) is determined to go far in the 2023 Asian Cup.
It's noteworthy that most matches were evenly balanced, at least for a certain period. Only Iran easily dominated Palestine. Australia and Qatar, on the other hand, had to wait quite a while to "open their account," against India and Lebanon respectively. Japan even trailed Vietnam for 12 minutes. On one hand, this shows that the gap in skill level between the teams has narrowed considerably. Even Hong Kong managed to "fight" against the UAE (only trailing by one goal, losing 1-3 in injury time). On the other hand, the "favorites" still clearly demonstrated their superior class. They were always able to adjust their playing style and tempo, generally having immediate and appropriate solutions when needed to achieve victory.
Vietnam played very well against Japan.
The professional quality of this tournament is quite high. It's important to remember: this is just a glimpse of the first few matches, where most were theoretically one-sided games. Weaker teams have shown resilience, while stronger teams haven't disappointed. This is noteworthy because at this time, continental championships, especially the European Championship (EURO) and the Copa America (Copa America), are declining in quality. Top-level football is now mainly appealing at the club level, due to better player chemistry and the fact that each club has a strong squad (considering their own circumstances). From these first few "watchable" matches, it's possible to predict that this year's Asian Cup will be very exciting, as the strong teams truly heat up and the race enters the real competition phase.
The 2023 AFC Asian Cup was the first continental championship to use the new SAOT technology (semi-automatic offside detection system). Previously, this technical system had only been used by FIFA at the 2022 World Cup. Another historic detail: Yoshimi Yamashita (Japan) officially became the first female referee to officiate a match at the Asian Cup finals. She refereed the India-Australia match in Group B.
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