Two teams chasing the 2015 Asian Cup will do battle today in a match between Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The quarterfinal clash scheduled for 4:30 a.m. ET will be held at Stadium Australia in Sydney and can be live streamed here. Additional TV coverage can be found on One World Sports.
What They're Saying
Japan head coach Javier Aguirre (via the National): "I have watched the UAE's games, and I think he [Omar Abdulrahman] is a wonderful player and European teams are looking at his high level play. But one player can't win games. The UAE won as a team, and we hope to take care of him the same as other players. We must fight in the 90 minutes of each game and respect our opponents and hope to continue as we have done. From my experience in the Copa America, the World Cup and the Gold Cup, our chances are the same as the other seven teams. We start from zero from now."
UAE head coach Mahdi Ali (via Daily Mail): "I don't want to speak about the referee. I've been playing and involved in football for more than 35 years, since I was about six years old, and I never speak about the referee."
Tactical Preview
Player to Watch: Japan's Shinji Kagawa is yet to capture his 2012 form since returning to Borussia Dortmund. The 25-year-old has just one goal and an average of two key passes in the Bundesliga, but is proving to be influential internationally with Japan.
Japan's Projected Lineup (4-1-4-1): Kawashima; Nagatomo, Yoshida, Morishige, Sakal; Hasebe; Inul, Endo, Kagawa, Honda; Okazaki
UAE's Projected Lineup (4-4-2): Nasser; Abbas, Kamali, Sanqour, Saad; Abdulrahman, Abdulrahman, Ismail, Abdulrahman; Mabkhout, Khalil
Note: Credit all statistics to officially licensed data from Opta Sports (lineups and statistics via WhoScored).
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