Saturday see’s the start of the week long EAFF East Asian Cup 2013. This competition is held every 4 years or so this year they’ve moved the tournament forward a year so it doesn’t clash with the world cup. The last tournament was in 2010 and was won by China.
This year winners China are joined by hosts (and 2010 runners up) South Korea as well as Japan (3rd in 2010) and Australia (winners of the qualifying tournament). The East Asian cup is a round robin league style tournament with the winners the team top of the league after everybody has played each other once.
Games are being played over a week starting on July 20th and finishing July 28th. The games will be played in 3 different stadiums; the Seoul World Cup Stadium, the Hwaseong Stadium and Jamsil Olympic Stadium.
The squads for each team is missing all of their European based players who have returned to their club for pre-season training. Both China and Japan have fully domestic squads. The South Korea squad is pretty inexperienced with only 5 people with more than 10 caps and 7 uncapped players. Because of this it is a little tricky to predict the outcome well however this is what we think.
EAFF East Asian Cup 2013:
Our Prediction for the EAFF East Asian Cup 2013
1st – South Korea
2nd – Japan
3rd – Australia
4th – China
Thoughts:
Sadly for China we feel that over the past 3 years their level hasn’t really grown and the other East Asian nations will be able to better them.
Australia have a handful of strong players but their squad to weakened because of the lack of European based talent.
Japan are bring over a very inexperienced and young squad so it’s hard to say what they’ll produce, but we feel the match vs. Australia will be key.
South Korea’s core squad is based on the bronze medal Olympic team and so we think they’ll do well. Although like the other teams they’re missing a few key players they have a strong chance of winning with the home field and support advantage.
EAFF East Asian Cup 2013 Results
Game 1: South Korea 0 – 0 Australia
South Korea dominated the game and had over 25 shots compered to Australia’s 6. However at the end of the day Australia defended strongly and Korea were a little unlucky. This results means that both teams really need to win their next game.
Highlights:
Game 2: Japan 3 – 3 China
Kurihara, Kakitani and Kudo scored for Japan. Whilst Wang Yongpo (2 pens) and Sue Ke scored for China.
Highlights:
Game 3: South Korea 0 – 0 China
Another goalless draw for the hosts, in a game most people thought they should win.
Highlights:
Game 4: Japan 3 – 2 Australia
Saito and Osako (x2) scored for Japan. Whilst Duke and Juric scored for Australia.
Highlights:
Game 5: China 4 – 3 Australia
An exciting game which saw 4 of the goals scored in the final 10minutes.
Highlights:
Game 6: South Korea 1 -2 Japan
Disaster struck for Korea as they lost to rivals Japan due to a 91st minute winner. Overall it was an exciting game, the result of which means Japan claim the Cup.
Highlights:
Our EAFF East Asian Cup 2013 Round Up
Final Table:
1st – Japan
2nd – China
3rd – South Korea
4th – Australia
Japan had an edgy start but in the end powered though to win the cup. Hosts South Korea showed good defensive strength but were lacking any fire power up front (sadly). China were the surprise package playing much better than most expected maybe a sign that the high level foreign imports into the Chinese Super League are having a positive impact. Australia looked pretty average during the competition and it’s highly likely many who gained 1st caps this past week may never play again at this level (time will tell).
Women’s Competition
Running parallel to the Men’s Competition is a Women’s Competition. The games are generally being played just before the Men’s games giving 2 matches per day for those attending. The competition is being contested by 4 nations; South Korea (hosts), Japan, China and North Korea. Here are the fixtures:
We don’t know a lot about the women’s international football, although an educated guess on the final table would be;
1st – Japan (2011 World Cup Winners, Olympic Silver medalists and ranked 3rd in the World)
2nd – South Korea (16th in the World but with home field advantage)
3rd – North Korea (9th in the World but banned from the World Cup and unpredictable)
4th – China (17th in World)
EAFF Women’s East Asian Cup 2013 Results
Game 1: Japan 2 – 0 China
Japans goalscorers were Ando and Nakajima.
Highlights:
Game 2: South Korea 1 – 2 North Korea
Kim Soo-Yun scored for South Korea but Ha Un-Byol won the match for the North Koreans.
Highlights:
Game 3: South Korea 1 – 2 China
A second 2-1 defeat for the hosts.
Highlights:
Game 4: Japan 0 – 0 North Korea
A pretty dull scoreless draw.
Highlights:
Game 5: North Korea 1 – 0 China
North Korea edged this game by a single goal leaving Japan needing to beat South Korea
Highlights:
Game 6: South Korea 2 – 1 Japan
An entertaining game which South Korea edged thank to two goals from Ji Soyun.
Highlights:
Our EAFF Women’s East Asian Cup 2013 Round Up:
Everything came down to the final round of game and with North Korea win by just a single goal vs. China, Japan only had to match that result to win the cup. However they didn’t expect South Korea (who lost both of their game so far) to finally wake up. South Korea won an entertaining game 2 – 1 which meant that their neighbors from the North took their first ever East Asian Cup.
The beautiful scenes at the end of the game with the North Koreans and South Koreans celebrating together many in tears will live in the memory for a long time and shows that sport isn’t always focused on boundaries or borders.
Final Table:
1st – North Korea (1st Title)
2nd – Japan
3rd – South Korea
4th – China
Links
Main Website: eaff.com/competitions/eafc2013/index.html
East Asian Cup 2013 Tickets: ticket.interpark.com/Global/Play/Bridge/EAFF.asp
Closing
There is one K League Classic being played during the tournament, Jeju United vs. Incheon United on Sunday.
As always if you have anything you’d like to add please let us know and have a nice weekend and week.
We will try and keep things updated as best as possible via Twitter (and little via Facebook).
Tim
Modern Seoul
tim@modernseoul.org
Modern Seoul 
Reblogged this on Seoul for my soul.