Taiwans womens team had to fight hard but eventually broke down a dogged Kyrgyzstan team amid terrible conditions. Given the amount of rain that came crashing down on the field, neither side could really play any football and the Mulan will take comfort that they escaped a tricky situation with another win.

Despite both teams getting soaked to the bone by the time the national anthems had finished playing, Taiwan looked to find a breakthrough early but were stymied by the weather. As early as the fifteenth minute, vast pools of water had appeared on the field and the ball would often simply stop dead on the ground.

Taiwan would have to wait until the twentieth minute before their first real chance and it came when Hsu Yi-yun flashed a long range shot narrowly wide of Dilnura Abibulla Kyzy’s goal. But it was all decidedly hit-and-hope stuff, and through no fault of their own, Taiwan simply couldn’t build up any momentum.

Soon after Hsu’s shot, the teams were pulled from the field due to the terrible conditions and only emerged half an hour later to continue the game. With the added rest and slightly drier conditions, Taiwan looked more assured and began to apply greater pressure. A rasping effort from Li Yi-wen stung the hands of Abibulla Kyzy but the chances were still mostly coming from long distance.

Fortunately for Taiwan, the breakthrough was finally achieved just before halftime. Having given away a corner, a costly error from Aizhan Boronbekova then gave the ball to Tseng Yun-ya just inside the box, who then laid the ball off to Pan Shin-yu. The defender’s left-footed strike flew into the top corner and Taiwan found themselves in the lead via an unlikely source.

With the field starting to dry out, Taiwan came out after halftime with a swagger. Although they were finding it hard to get shots on goal, no-one could deny that another goal was coming. Kyrgyzstan were organized and plucky but simply had no way of getting around the Taiwanese high press.

Sure enough, Taiwan doubled their lead on the sixty-sixth minute after Kyrgyzstan finally turned the ball over too close to their goal. Abibulla Kyzy perhaps lingered too long on the ball as she surveyed the field, allowing the Mulan forward line to close out all the logical passing lanes.

Had she moved sooner, perhaps Kyrgyzstan could have cleared their lines but instead, the keeper rushed her pass to Aiturgan Kurmanbekova, who could only watch in horror as Huang Ke-sin got to the ball first. A simple pass across goal followed and Su Yu-hsuan finished cooly for the second goal of the evening.

At this point, Kyrgyzstan were in complete mental collapse and two minutes later, Adelaida Myrzalieva gave away a penalty after pulling both the shirt of Huang and also lunging in from behind in the same motion. It was a preposterous foul and the referee looked almost embarrassed to compound the humiliation by giving Myrzalieva a yellow card for the challenge. Saki Matsunaga then rubbed salt into the wound by finishing cooly to her left as Taiwan put the finishing touches to a tough but deserved victory.

Almost immediately after the final goal had gone in, Taiwan began making substitutions. Abibulla Kyzy made good saves from Tseng and Su but for the most part, the final twenty minutes of the game went by slowly. Neither side seemed interested in going too hard with the result beyond any doubt.

With hosts Indonesia unexpectedly losing to Pakistan in the group’s other game, Taiwan now find themselves in the driving seat for qualification to the AFC Cup next summer. A draw against Indonesia on Saturday will be enough to book their tickets to the finals and given the momentum that the Mulan are building, they should be confident of sealing the deal and moving on the next stage.

Photo Credit: Asian Football Confederation