INDONESIA have been knocked out of the Under-23 Asian Cup Monday after a 2-0 semi-final defeat to Uzbekistan, forcing the archipelago nation to wait for qualification to the Olympic males’s football event for what could be the second time in its historical past.
The Red and Whites can nonetheless qualify for the Games in Paris in the event that they win a third-place playoff match towards both Japan or Iraq later this week.
In the occasion they lose and end fourth, they have to beat Guinea in an Asian-African playoff match.
Their Central Asian rivals broke Indonesian hearts in Qatari capital Doha when Khusayin Norchaev tucked house a cross between two defenders within the 68th minute, and Prutama Arhan scored an personal objective within the 86th minute.
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The second objective got here after Indonesia went all the way down to 10 males when Rizky Ridho was despatched off for a excessive sort out that was deemed to be violent conduct.
If Indonesia had received, they’d have performed football at an Olympics for the primary time in practically seven a long time, because the Soviet Union eradicated them from the 1956 Games in Melbourne.
The U-23 Asian Cup is the Asian Football Confederation’s qualification event for the Olympics, the place football is performed by largely U-23 squads with three exceptions for older gamers allowed in every group.
Indonesia’s qualification hopes dramatically rose after beating Asian powerhouse South Korea final week.
It was a South Korean coach, Shin Tae-yong, who led Indonesia to victory to stop his house nation from qualifying for the Games for the primary time because the Nineteen Eighties.
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