ASIAN GAMES 2018 Men’s Tournament, Day 2 — China and Saudi Arabia on Top of Their Group

Day Two of the Men’s Tournament on the Asian Games played out to everyone’s expectations. Iran celebrated in group A, while China and Saudi Arabia won the matches in group B.

Comments

Petar Porobic, China coach:

This game was a good start to prepare for the next because yesterday we lost to Japan. I only told my team that the match would be easy if we prepared ourselves more seriously. The strongest opponents for us are Japan and Kazakhstan because both of them have played in some competitions before.

Milos Sakovic, Indonesia coach:

For the next match, I think Japan is the strongest team. We hope for good fortune in the next match. As a coach, I would like to say that we should be realistic in every match we play. We cannot expect, but we still do our best.

Putra Reza Auditya, Indonesia captain:

We tried all strategies like yesterday, but they have not been successful. Our coach also knew that China was a strong team. This Asian Games competition is good for the future. For the next match with Japan, we will still use the same strategy as before and play as much as possible. Today’s constraint was our psychological decline. We were confused while playing against China, who are stronger than us, one of the strongest teams in Asia. In addition, we all played for the first time at the Asian Games and were the first to meet opponents as strong as the Chinese team. However, opponents like China are good for our mental training to prepare for the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.

Results

Saturday 25th August

Group A

09:30 Republic of Korea9
 Kazakhstan16

10:20 Singapore5
 Iran11

Group B

15:00 Saudi Arabia12
 Indonesia12

16:20 Japan12
 China4

Sunday 26th August

Group A

17:10 Iran16
 Republic of Korea11

Group B

14:30 Indonesia2
 China19

15:50 Saudi Arabia12
 Hong Kong6

Monday 27th August

Group A

14:30 Kazakhstan
 Singapore

Group B

15:50 China
 Hong Kong

17:10 Indonesia
 Japan

Tuesday 28th August

Group A

17:10 Kazakhstan
 Iran

Group B

14:30 Hong Kong
 Japan

15:50 China
 Saudi Arabia

Wednesday 29th August

Group A

14:30 Singapore
 Republic of Korea

Group B

15:50 Japan
 Saudi Arabia

17:10 Hong Kong
 Indonesia

Group Standings

Group A

Rank	Team	MP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Iran	2	2	0	0	27	16	11	4
2	Kazakhstan	1	1	0	0	16	9	7	2
3	Republic of Korea	2	0	0	2	20	32	-12	0
3	Singapore	1	0	0	1	5	11	-6	0

Group B

Rank	Team	MP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Saudi Arabia	2	1	1	0	24	18	6	3
2	China	2	1	0	1	23	14	9	2
2	Japan	1	1	0	0	12	4	8	2
4	Indonesia	2	0	1	1	14	31	-17	1
5	Hong Kong	1	0	0	1	6	12	-6	0