1996 AFC Asian Cup

1996 AFC Asian Cup
The 1996 AFC Asian Cup was the 11th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in the United Arab Emirates between 4 and 21 December 1996. Saudi Arabia defeated hosts United Arab Emirates in the final match in Abu Dhabi. As the runners-up, the United Arab Emirates represented the AFC in the 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup as the winners Saudi Arabia had qualified automatically as host.
Qualification
33 teams participated in a preliminary tournament. It was divided into 10 groups and the first-placed team of each group thus qualified.
The qualifying teams were:
Notes:
1 Bold indicates champion for that year
2 Italic indicates host
Squads
Tournament summary
The tournament began with host United Arab Emirates took up against South Korea in group A, where the Emiratis played in a 1–1 draw. Subsequently, Kuwait was surprisingly held draw by Indonesia, even being taken lead by the Indonesians. However, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and South Korea eventually established its position, with South Korea finished in third place due to losing to Kuwait and inferior by goal differences and qualified only as one of two best third-placed team, while the host comfortably seized first place, leaving Indonesia in bottom after two consecutive defeats to South Korea and the UAE.
Group B easily saw Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq took three leading places in their group, with both teams managed to beat Thailand, which finished bottom with three defeats, and also each three of them suffered one defeat one to another. Iraq only finished third due to inferior goal difference, but qualified as the best third-place finisher.
Meanwhile, group C was more entertaining, with both three last finishers grabbed one win each only. Debutant Uzbekistan, on its just first ever competitive participation of a major tournament and was regarded low, stunned entire of Asia by beating China with two late goals to gain three points in the team's just first competitive match. Defending champions Japan however emerged as the only team to collect all three victories, while China recovered following the defeat to beat Syria. The Syrians grabbed its only win, a 2–1 win over Uzbekistan, but the team's poor performance, with two defeats to Japan and China, cost the team from reaching the quarter-finals. Uzbekistan finished last despite the win over China, and was eliminated as well.
The quarter-finals saw entire of East Asia slumped out. Defending champions Japan was crushed down by Kuwait, China lost after a seven-goal thriller with Saudi Arabia, while South Korea suffered a denting 2–6 loss to Iran, with Iran scored five goals in the second half. The host UAE continued its quest to win the trophy with a successful 1–0 win over Iraq thanked for the golden goal of Abdulrahman Ibrahim. The semi-finals became a West Asian affair and rematches of group A and B: Saudi Arabia took a successful revenge on Iran following the group stage, beating the Iranians on penalty, while the UAE killed Kuwaiti dream for the second time with another 1–0 win to set up final with Saudi Arabia. Iran eventually took third place after beating Kuwait on penalty, the match ended 1–1 draw.
The final between the UAE and Saudi Arabia happened to be boring than expected. The two teams played defensively and lacking enthusiastic attacks in front of 60,000 spectators. Eventually, penalty had to be brought out, where the UAE missed two while Saudi Arabia only missed one, thus Saudi Arabia was crowned for its third trophy in the country's fourth consecutive Asian Cup final. Thanked for the win, Saudi Arabia gained automatic berth to qualify for the 2000 AFC Asian Cup held in Lebanon.
Venues
First round
All times are UAE time (UTC+4)
Group A
Group B
Group C
Third-placed qualifiers
At the end of the first stage, a comparison was made between the third placed teams of each group. The two best third-placed teams advanced to the quarter-finals.
Iraq (best third-place) and South Korea (second best third-place) qualified for the quarter-finals.
Knockout stage
All times are UAE time (UTC+4)
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place play-off
Final
Statistics
Goalscorers
With eight goals, Iran's Ali Daei is the top scorer of the tournament. In total, 80 goals were scored by 47 different players, with one of them credited as an own goal.
8 goals
Ali Daei
6 goals
Jasem Al-Huwaidi
4 goals
Fahad Al-Mehallel
3 goals
Hwang Sun-Hong
Hassan Saeed
2 goals
Zhang Enhua
Widodo Putro
Ronny Wabia
Khodadad Azizi
Karim Bagheri
Haidar Mahmoud
Laith Hussein
Masakiyo Maezono
Kim Do-Hoon
Sami Al-Jaber
Khalid Al-Temawi
Yousuf Al-Thunayan
Nader Joukhadar
Adnan Al-Talyani
1 goal
Gao Feng
Ma Mingyu
Li Bing
Peng Weiguo
Mehrdad Minavand
Naeim Saadavi
Hussam Fawzi
Khalid Mohammed Sabbar
Kazuyoshi Miura
Hiroshi Nanami
Naoki Soma
Takuya Takagi
Ko Jeong-Woon
Shin Tae-Yong
Bashar Abdullah
Badr Haji
Hani Al Saqer
Khalid Al-Muwallid
Ali Cheikh Dib
Dusit Chalermsan
Kiatisuk Senamuang
Abdulrahman Ibrahim
Saad Bakheet Mubarak
Khamis Saad
Sergey Lebedev
Oleg Shatskikh
Igor Shkvyrin
1 own goal
Hassan Abbas (for Japan)
Awards
Best player
Khodadad Azizi
Top scorer
Ali Daei
Best goalkeeper
Mohamed Al-Deayea
Fair play award
Team of the Tournament
Final standings
Marketing
Sponsorships
Canon Inc.
Clarion
Coca-Cola
Diadora
Emirates
Energizer
Fujifilm
Gillette
Mild Seven
Mitsubishi
SABIC
Sanyo
References
External links
RSSSF Details
AFC Asian Cup tournaments
Afc Asian Cup, 1996
Asian Cup
International association football competitions hosted by the United Arab Emirates
December 1996 sports events in Asia