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Unus Alladin

CHAMPIONS Japan put their recent disappointments firmly behind them when they retained the Dynasty Cup after winning a dramatic penalty shoot-out against South Korea at the Hong Kong Stadium yesterday.

  Midfielder Lee Ki-hyung delayed Japan's victory when his equaliser two minutes into injury time made it 2-2 and took the match to extra-time and then to a penalty shoot-out.

  Japan thought they had the title in the bag when Motohiro Yamaguchi scored with an 86th-minute goal.

  Japan showed their superiority in the shoot-out, stroking home all five of their kicks while South Korea missed one to make it 5-3.

  South Korean captain Choi Yong-su, who had been an inspiration up front, ballooned his effort over the bar and victory was sealed for Japan when Masami Ihara found his target.

  It was the second time Japan needed a penalty shoot-out to win the trophy after winning in similar fashion in Beijing three years ago.

 South Korea had fielded virtually an Olympic team with a sprinkling of experienced World Cup players, but Japanese head coach Shu Kamo said nobody could take their victory away.

 'This was a full international match even though South Korea fielded their Olympic team with a few of their older team members included. We still beat them and were confident of beating them from the start,' said Kamo.

  'We were lucky to have won in the penalty shoot-out but I felt we performed better than the Koreans and we could have won the match in extra-time.'   Japan's victory, before a Sunday afternoon crowd of 25,364, made up for their recent disappointment at the Intercontinental Cup in Saudi Arabia and last year's Asian Games.

  Defeat was hard to swallow for South Korea's Russian coach Anatoli Byshovets who saw his squad finish runners-up in a Hong Kong tournament for the second time in 22 days.

 South Korea were earlier this month beaten by Yugoslavia in the final of the Carlsberg Cup Lunar New Year tournament.

  Bychovets said: 'In the first minute of extra-time we had a chance of winning the game but we couldn't do it.

  'This is our third straight tournament and the players were getting quite exhausted.'   Japan got off to the best possible start when they opened the scoring one minute and 50 seconds into the game through Masahiro Fukuda, whom Kamo had decided to field as a replacement for suspended star winger Masakiyo Maezono.

 Fukuda swept the ball home in a polished finish after Kenta Hasegawa had whipped a corner into the box. But that goal seemed to lift the spirits of South Korea more than Japan as the four-time World Cup finalists replied with some determined play.

  And it was not a long wait until they were rewarded for their efforts when midfielder Lee scored probably the best goal of the tournament when he buried a 20-yard shot which flew into the top left hand corner of the net after picking up Lee Woo-young's weighted corner.

  Japan looked to have the match firmly in their grasp when Yamaguchi scored with a low drive four minutes before the end of regulation time but Lee hauled South Korea back into the game with a last-minute equaliser in regulation time.

  Lee found his mark with a low drive after collecting Woo Sung-yong's pass - a goal which was almost a carbon-copy of the earlier goal scored by Japan's Yamaguchi.

 South Korea had chances to seal the game in extra-time through their captain Choi Yong-hwan who intercepted a poor pass by Japanese goalkeeper Shigetatsu Matsunaga and raced clear only to see his close-range shot smothered by Matsunaga.

 Japan then took up the offensive in remaining minutes of extra-time with two chances including Hajime Moriyasu's dipping shot which struck the crossbar one minute before time.

 Japan (4-4-2): Shigetatsu Matsunaga; Masami Ihara, Tetsuji Hashiratani, Motohiro Yamaguchi, Hiroshige Yanagimoto; Hajme Moriyasu, Akira Narahashi, Tsuyoshi Kitazawa, Masahiro Fukuda; Kenta Hasegawa, Hisashi Kurosaki (Yoshiyuki Hasegawa 94).

South Korea (4-4-2): Seo Dong-myung; Park Choong-kyoon, Lee Min-sung, Kim Sang-hoon, Cho Jong-hwa; Yoo Sang-chul, Lee Ki-hyung, Woo Sung-yong, Choi Yoon-yeol; Choi Yong-su, Lee Woo-young.



Japan spot on to keep grip on Dynasty Cup