The AOFC WFC qualification became much more interesting after the only match in the qualification on Thursday, when Korea a little surprisingly beat Australia with 5-0.

In the APAC tournament Iran scored their first goal but lost to Singapore 17-1 in a physical hard match.

In the only WFCQ match of the day Australia, which was looking for a second victory in the tournament, took on Korea, which had lost with a late goal against Japan.

The importance of the game could clearly be seen in the first period, since both teams tried their outmost to avoid making mistakes and the game therefore stayed mainly in midfield for ending the period without any goals. Korea had changed their tactics and did not press the opponent in the first period.

Korea was able to activate their game, playing the ball wisely around from player to player using the whole field of play denying the Aussies any ball control. When Korea scored the first goal after 29 minutes followed by a second only some minutes later, the Aussies were driven to activate their game and bring their fore checking higher. This gave the fast Koreans more space open their game and which resulted in two penalties for the Aussies, which Korea executed superbly scoring twice in power play, with Kyoung Hoon Seo scoring his second goal.

A loss for Australia would in principle mean that the dream of a spot in the WFC was at risk, the Aussies came back to the third period strongly motivated, but were not able to utilize even their two power play opportunities. When Korea’s goalkeeper Young June Lee denied every chance the Australians could create and Young Soo Kwon scored 5-0 for Korea, the match was over.

The AOFC qualification tournament became even more exciting, since everything is now still quite open. The stakes are very high in the match between Japan and Singapore on Friday.


Photo: Yoshiaki Ito/WFCQ 2012 AOFC

Singapore not giving Iran any chance

Singapore did not take any risks in the match against Iran but started off in full tempo scoring already after 1:07.

Iran made their first goal in the tournament after 12:12 but Singapore was already ahead 5-0 at that time.

Team Singapore kept the speed up and won the physical hard match 17-1 (6-1, 6-0, 5-0).
As best players were awarded Sivalingam Johnson, Singapore and Zeinoddini Esmaei, Iran. 


Photo: Yoshiaki Ito/WFCQ 2012 AOFC