A series of surprises, Indonesia caused shock at the 2026 World Cup Asian Qualifiers
The third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia has seen a series of surprises, including Indonesia's draw on Saudi Arabia's home field.
Fans have witnessed consecutive surprises in the opening matches of the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia.
Indonesia shocks, Japan wins devastatingly
Indonesia, the only representative of Southeast Asian football in this round, is one of the teams that caused a surprise.
Despite being underestimated, the Indonesian team shocked everyone when they drew 1-1 on Saudi Arabia's field.
At King Abdullah Sports City, Indonesia were the better team in the first half and took the lead through Ragnar Oratmangoen in the 19th minute with a decisive shot from inside the box.
It was not until the injury time of the first half that Saudi Arabia had an equalizer through Musab Al Juwayr after his shot deflected off Verdonk and changed direction.
In the second half, Indonesia was under great pressure and was penalized with a penalty after goalkeeper Paes fouled Al Brikan in the penalty area.
However, Paes made up for his mistake by successfully saving a penalty in the 79th minute, helping Indonesia avoid conceding a second goal.
Not stopping there, goalkeeper Paes made many excellent saves to protect the 1-1 result for the home team, thereby getting the first point in Group C of the 3rd qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup.
Also in this group, a big surprise happened when Bahrain won 1-0 right on Australia's field thanks to Harry Souttar's own goal in the 89th minute.
Meanwhile, the Japanese team had a resounding 7-0 victory over China thanks to the brilliance of stars playing in Europe.
Wataru Endo, Kaoru Mitoma, Takumi Minamino (double), Junya Ito, Daizen Maeda and Takefusa Kubo took turns "breaking the net" of the Chinese team to bring victory to Japan.
With this result, Japan is temporarily leading Group C with 3 points, followed by Bahrain with 3 points but with a lower goal difference. Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are right behind while Australia and China are in the bottom two positions.
UAE reverses Qatar
In Group A, a big surprise also happened when the UAE team won a 3-1 comeback victory right on the field of the Qatar team.
Qatar got off to a good start with Ibrahim Al Hassan opening the scoring 1-0 in the first half.
However, in the second half, UAE played explosively, continuously creating waves before Harib Abdalla Suhail, Khaled Ebraheim and Ali Saleh took turns scoring to successfully reverse the situation.
This is also the first victory of UAE against Qatar since 2015, the rest are all losses (3 matches) and draws (1 match).
This victory also helped UAE temporarily rise to the top of Group A, with the same 3 points as Iran and Uzbekistan but a better goal difference.
In the remaining two matches, Iran beat Kyrgyzstan 1-0 thanks to a goal from Terami, while Uzbekistan also overcame North Korea by the same score after a goal from Masharipov.
South Korea's disappointing start
In Group B, the Korean team was highly rated but only won 1 point after a 0-0 draw against Palestine at home.
This result is quite surprising when Korea has full stars in the squad such as Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in or Kim Min-Jae.
Along with South Korea, the Jordan team also only managed a 1-1 draw against Kuwait at Amman International Stadium.
Jordan had a good start with Mousa Al Ta'mari opening the scoring in the 14th minute, but could not protect the result when the visitors equalized with Yousef Al Sulaiman's goal from the 11m mark in the second half's injury time.
Only able to draw, South Korea and Jordan accepted to see the top spot in Group B fall into the hands of the Iraqi team after the opening match of the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup.
In the remaining match, the Iraqi team beat Oman 1-0. Aymen Hussein played the hero role with a goal in the 13th minute of the match.
In the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup, 18 teams are divided into 3 groups. Each group of 6 teams will play a round-robin tournament from September 5, 2024 to June 10, 2025.
The top two teams will be guaranteed a place at the World Cup, while the third-placed teams in each group will advance to the next round to compete for a place in the next round.