{"id":1180,"date":"2026-03-21T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2026-03-21T11:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:00:10","slug":"matildas-edged-out-by-japan-in-asian-cup-final-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=1180","title":{"rendered":"Matildas edged out by Japan in Asian Cup final | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Our three Australians fell just short in the Asian Cup final, going down 1-0 to Japan in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Kyra Cooney-Cross all started for Joe Montemurro&#8217;s side at the Australia Stadium, and it one of our Gunners who had the best chance early on.<\/p>\n<p>Foord was found well by Mary Fowler but our forward was only able to shoot straight at Ayaka Yamashita in the Japan net.<\/p>\n<p>Seven minutes later it was Japan who made the breakthrough after 17 minutes through Maika Hamano with a beauty from the edge of the box, giving Mackenzie Arnold no chance.<\/p>\n<p>Foord continued to prove a threat all half, having two further efforts but wasn&#8217;t able to find the leveller before the interval.<\/p>\n<p>The Matildas continued to push in the second half. Cooney-Cross launched an ambitious effort from the halfway line, but couldn&#8217;t catch out Yamashita.<\/p>\n<p>Down the other end, Riko Ueki could&#8217;ve doubled Japan&#8217;s lead after being slipped through by Hamano but could only fire at Arnold.<\/p>\n<p>Despite late pressure, the Matildas couldn&#8217;t break down a stubborn Japan side as the visitors held on to win a third Asian Cup trophy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our three Australians fell just short in the Asian Cup final, going down 1-0 to Japan in Sydney. Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Kyra Cooney-Cross all started for Joe Montemurro&#8217;s &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}