Japan were two minutes from going out, and they beat Uzbekistan 9-8 on penalties to meet Korea in a third straight Asian Games final
Sena Ishibashi’s 88th-minute header took the semi-final in Osaka to extra time, and Go Oiwa’s under-21 side won a ten-round shootout to reach Saturday’s gold medal match.
Oct 1, 2026
Japan were two minutes from going out of their own Asian Games. Uzbekistan had led since early in the first half at Nagai Stadium in Osaka on Wednesday, 30 September, and Go Oiwa’s under-21 side had spent most of the night with the ball and very little to show for it. Then Keita Kosugi crossed from the left, Sena Ishibashi met it with his head in the 88th minute, and the semi-final went to extra time at 1-1.
Nobody scored in the extra 30 minutes. The shootout that followed went to ten kicks each, and Japan won it 9-8 to set up a gold medal match against South Korea on Saturday, 3 October.
Twenty penalties in Osaka
Sardorbek Bakhromov’s goal inside the first ten minutes gave Uzbekistan something to sit on, and their wingers gave Japan problems on the break. A crowd of 15,550 watched the hosts push for an equaliser through the second half without finding one until the last few minutes.
The shootout had a miss on each side in the early rounds. Uzbekistan’s second taker failed to score, and Japan gave that back when their fourth taker, the striker Nwadike, missed. Nwadike had scored the only goal of the quarter-final against North Korea four days earlier. After that nobody missed until the tenth round, when Japan scored and Uzbekistan’s tenth taker hit the crossbar. It is a cruel way to lose a semi-final, and some of the young Uzbek players were in tears at the end.
Japan are doing this with an under-21 squad, picked with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics in mind rather than the older group the rules allow. Uzbekistan now play China for bronze earlier on Saturday.
Korea again, for the third time running
This is the third Asian Games in a row in which the men’s final is Japan against South Korea, and Korea won the previous two. In Jakarta in 2018 the final was goalless after 90 minutes before Lee Seung-woo and Hwang Hee-chan scored in extra time; Ayase Ueda’s late goal for Japan only made it 2-1. In Hangzhou, where the 2022 Games were played in 2023, Kotaro Uchino put Japan ahead in the second minute, and Korea still won 2-1 through Jeong Woo-yeong and Cho Young-wook.
Korea reached this final by coming from behind against China on Wednesday, with Bae Jun-ho heading the winner late on. Japan have not won Asian Games gold since 2010.
The final kicks off at 7:30pm local time at Toyota Stadium, which is 4pm IST. Japan will have the home crowd this time, and on the evidence of Osaka they will need everything that comes with it.