edge-of-the-seat decider<\/a> culminated a landmark tournament with more than 350,000 fans through the turnstiles, reinforcing the growth in popularity of the women\u2019s game.<\/p>\nThis was about six times as many as the previous tournament record set in 2010 in China, with the final setting a new attendance record for a single game in tournament history.<\/p>\n
The Asian Cup doubled as qualifying for the World Cup in Brazil next year, with Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, North Korea and the Philippines all punching their tickets.<\/p>\n
The Japanese team, stacked with English-based players, was invincible in their run to the final, fluid across the park, and defending well, steamrolling everyone in front of them.<\/p>\n
While Australia proved a much tougher test, nothing could stop them as they accumulated 29 goals and conceded just one through their six tournament games to reinforce their status as Asia\u2019s number one team.<\/p>\n
Japan named an unchanged lineup from their 4-1 semifinal thumping of South Korea.<\/p>\n
Australia made one change to the team that beat defending champions China 2-1 in the last four with Wini Heatley preferred in central defence to Clare Hunt.<\/p>\n
The hosts were composed at the start, looking to dictate the game, and Caitlin Foord should have scored on 11 minutes when Mary Fowler threaded a pass through inside the box.<\/p>\n
But the unmarked Arsenal striker sent her shot straight into the arms of Japan keeper Ayaka Yamashita to miss a golden opportunity.<\/p>\n
It proved costly with Japan breaking the deadlock six minutes later when Tottenham midfielder Hamano collected the ball outside the penalty area and unleashed a 25-yard rocket that found the top corner.<\/p>\n
Foord had another chance when she pounced on a sloppy clearance from Yamashita, but failed to find the target from a tight angle, then scuffed another wide just before the break.<\/p>\n
Japan were always a threat, and West Ham\u2019s Riko Ueki went close twice in as many minutes soon after the restart.<\/p>\n
With the game on a knife-edge, Australia threw everything they had at Japan in a desperate attempt to find an equaliser as the crowd noise reached fever pitch.<\/p>\n
Alanna Kennedy almost pulled off a late equaliser in the 88th minute, but despite intense pressure, Japan were rock solid and absorbed the threat to cling on for the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan edges tournament hosts Australia 1-0 in \u2060the Women\u2019s \u2060Asian Cup final to claim third title in four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1631,972,4118,42,1437,43,2224,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-350863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}