Defending champions China are through to the Women’s Asian Cup semifinals after recording a 2-0 extra-time win over Chinese Taipei.<\/p>\n
China<\/a> have secured a semi-final berth against the Matildas after defeating Chinese Taipei<\/a> 2-0 in extra-time<\/a> in a tense Women’s Asian Cup<\/a> quarter-final showdown in Perth.<\/p>\n In front of 5,238 fans on Saturday, China hit the lead in the fourth minute of extra-time through Shao Ziqin<\/a> before the deal was sealed in the 118th minute via an unlucky own goal to Chen Ying-Hui<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reward is a semi-final showdown against tournament hosts Australia<\/a> at the 60,000-seat Optus Stadium on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Australia secured their spot in the final four with a nervy 2-1 win<\/a> over North Korea<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n Defending champions China had to work much harder for their win against world No. 40 Chinese Taipei than expected.<\/p>\n World No.17 China had a goal rubbed out in the 39th minute but still almost sealed the win without the need for extra-time when Yao Wei<\/a> fired off a shot in the seventh minute of stoppage time — only for it to hit the upright.<\/p>\n Shao broke the deadlock early in extra-time with a curling strike from just inside the box, but Wurigumula<\/a> had a penalty saved by Chinese Taipei goalkeeper Cheng Ssu-Yu<\/a> in the second period, keeping China on edge.<\/p>\n China made it 2-0 in the dying minutes of extra-time when a cross cannoned into Chinese Taipei defender Chen and in for a goal.<\/p>\n The match was played amidst a delicate political environment given China views self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing’s control.<\/p>\n There didn’t appear to be a repeat of the controversy in Sydney, when former Taiwan coach Chen Kuei-Jen was ejected from the stadium during the 3-1 win over India for leading a “Go Taiwan” chant.<\/p>\n Taiwan compete under the name Chinese Taipei in international sporting events.<\/p>\n China had 71.7% possession in the first half of Saturday’s match but it only translated to five shots — and just one on target — due to Chinese Taipei’s water-tight defence.<\/p>\n The one time China truly broke through was in the 39th minute when Zhang Xin<\/a>‘s inch-perfect cross was headed in by Wang Shuang<\/a>.<\/p>\n But China’s celebrations were short lived, with the VAR revealing Wang had committed a handball in the lead-up play while attempting to chest down the ball.<\/p>\n China unleashed 26 shots to two for the match and enjoyed 72% possession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending champions China are through to the Women’s Asian Cup semifinals after recording a 2-0 extra-time win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-539827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}