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A few hours separate us from the start of the 2023 Asian Cup of Nations in Qatar, where the home team will meet its Lebanese counterpart in the opening match of the continental competition tomorrow, Friday.
This is the third time that Qatar has hosted the continental championship after the 1988 and 2011 editions, and just over a year after the 2022 World Cup, the Gulf country is hosting another major football festival.
The Asian Football Confederation highlighted the most prominent historical figures witnessed by the Asian Nations Cup, from the launch of its first edition until now, as we highlight them in the following lines.
The team that won the most Asian titles
Japan, the 2019 runner-up, is the most successful team in the Asian Cup, having won the tournament title 4 times, in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011.
The Japanese team appeared in 5 final matches out of the last 8 finals of the tournament, and suffered its only loss in the final matches during the final of the last edition of the competition, which was held in the United Arab Emirates in 2019, at the hands of the Qatari team.
While Japan is proud to have the largest number of titles in Asian nations, the Iranian team is the only team that has won the championship three times in a row, after winning the cup in 1968, 1972 and 1976.
South Korea won the inaugural edition in 1956, and retained the title four years later, while Saudi Arabia also returned to win the title in 1984 and 1988.
While the host country won five titles during the first seven editions of the Asian Nations, only two teams won the tournament on their home soil in the following ten editions, according to the Asian Football Confederation.
Japan won its first title after defeating Saudi Arabia in the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1992, and 23 years later, Australia defeated South Korea after resorting to extra time in Sydney.
The tournament’s all-time top scorer
Iranian football legend Ali Daei sits at the top of the list of historical scorers for Asian nations with 14 goals during three editions between 1996 and 2004, and his record of scoring 4 goals during the second half against South Korea in the 1996 edition still stands as one of the greatest feats of the tournament.
Daei has a 4-goal advantage over his closest competitor, South Korean Lee Dong-gook, while Japanese Naohiro Takahara, Emirati Ali Mabkhout, and Qatari Almoez Ali each scored 9 goals.
Daei may face a threat to his survival at the top if Almoez Ali plays a distinguished tournament, as he did in the 2019 edition, when the Qatari striker scored 9 goals in 7 matches, leading his country to its first Asian title.
Al-Moez followed a routine approach – as well – after he scored 4 goals in one match, against North Korea in the group stage, but his double back kick, with which he opened the scoring against Japan in the final match of the tournament 5 years ago, will remain immortal in memory for a long time.
The fastest goal in the Asian Nations Cup
As for Ali Mabkhout, he also holds the record for the fastest goal in the history of the Asian Cup, when he opened the scoring against Bahrain after only 14 seconds in the group stage in 2015. The Emiratis won third place in that edition, while the striker won the top scorer award.
Mabkhout is still the first choice for his country in the attacking line, and he will join Al-Moez in his quest to close the gap with Daei’s record when the 2023 Asian Nations begins.
A number of players have appeared in 4 editions of the Asian Nations Cup over the past years, including legends; Such as: Japanese Yasuhito Endo, Iranian Mahdi Mahdavikia, Iraqi Younis Mahmoud, and Chinese Zeng Zhi, but no one can match Uzbek goalkeeper Ignatiy Nesterov.
Nesterov participated in all five editions of the Asian Cup between 2004 and 2019, reaching the knockout rounds on each occasion, and achieved his best appearance ever with his country by reaching the semi-finals in 2011.
Penalty kicks decide the fate of two finals
The fate of only two Asian Cup finals was decided through penalty kicks, and both times Saudi Arabia was the victor, as it maintained its composure to beat South Korea in 1988, then against the UAE in 1996, and both times the (green) team resorted to those kicks after the end of time. The original with its competitors in a goalless draw.
Winning the Asian Cup 3 times
Saudi Arabia, along with Iran, is one of the only two countries to have lifted the Asian Cup three times. However, Al-Akhdar’s success in 1996 remains the last, as it now looks to end a 27-year wait to win the title, this time under the leadership of Italian coach Roberto. Mancini.
Winning 41 matches
Iran has won more matches than any other team in the history of the Asian Cup, winning 41 of the 68 matches it has played in this tournament since its first appearance as host in the fourth edition in 1968.
But since winning its third title in 1976, the Iranian team has not appeared in the final, as it reached the semi-finals on 6 occasions, the last of which was when it lost to Japan in 2019.
The second oldest continental championship
36 countries from all over Asia have participated in the Asian Cup finals over the years in the tournament that began 68 years ago, and is the second oldest continental tournament after the Copa America in South America.
The Qatar 2023 edition will witness an increase in the number of participating teams in the history of Asian nations to 37 teams, with Tajikistan’s presence in the competition for the first time, as it plays its first match against China at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha next Saturday.
