Japan retain Asian crown

Japan underlined their status as potential dark horses in the 2006 FIFA World Cup by successfully defending the Asia Cup with a 3-1 final win against hosts China in front of 65,000 spectators in Beijing.

European-based duo
Starting with Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi of Denmark's FC Nordsjælland in goal and Shunsuke Nakamura of Italian club Reggina Calcio in midfield, Japan - who have beaten the Czech Republic, Iceland, Slovakia and Serbia and Montenegro in the last four months - took the lead on 22 minutes through Takashi Fukunishi. China, who began with TSV 1860 München midfield player Jiayi Shao, equalised with a 31rd-minute goal scored by Li Ming.

Vital goals
Koji Nakata restored Japan's advantage 20 minutes into the second half, and although China introduced Manchester City FC's Jihai Sun soon afterwards, they could not level the scores and in added time Keiji Tamada confirmed Japan's triumph, keeping hold of the trophy they first won in 1992 and regained last time out four years ago.

Missing quartet
It was an impressive performance from Japan, who were without four key European-based players. New ACF Fiorentina signing Hidetoshi Nakata is injured, as is Fulham FC's Junichi Inamoto, while Feyenoord's Shinji Ono and Naohiro Takahara of Hamburger SV will instead play for Japan at the Olympic Games.

All-Star honour
However, another Hamburg player, striker Mehdi Mahdavikia of third-placed Iran, was named in the All-Star team, along with Kawaguchi and Shao. Asia's World Cup qualifiers have begun, with the eight teams who will progress to play-off for the continent's three automatic places in Germany known by November.