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TEHRAN – Rion Ichihara scored the winning penalty as Japan defeated Iran 4-3 on penalties after their AFC U20 Asian Cup China 2025 quarter-final ended 1-1 at the Shenzhen Youth Football Training Base Centre Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Japan will face Australia in the semi-finals with the win also confirming them a place in the FIFA U20 World Cup Chile 2025.<\/p>\n
Japan were struggling to cope and Iran took advantage of free space down the middle in the fifth minute, Reza Ghandipour pouncing on the rebound following Gholizadeh\u2019s attempt from inside a packed box to squeeze the ball into the bottom right corner.<\/p>\n
It came in the 30th minute when Kose Ogura had time and space to line up his shot from distance, with the ball taking a deflection off Amirmohammad Razzaghini to beat a fully stretched Arsha Shakouri.<\/p>\n
Japan started the first period of extra-time just as they had ended the second half as they peppered the Iran goalmouth with shots, with only some steely defending keeping them at bay.<\/p>\n
Iran continued to live dangerously as they conceded a free-kick at the start of the second period of extra-time but Shakouri pulled off another full length save to deny Ryunosuke Sato from just above the box, the-afc.com reported.<\/p>\n
With both sides unable to find the winner, the tie went to penalties and despite Shakouri\u2019s best efforts – scoring one and saving Japan\u2019s third in the shootout – Iran\u2019s Erfan Darvish Aali and Pourya Shahrabadi missed the opening two efforts with Ichihara netting the winning spot-kick as\u00a0Japan advanced to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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