A nightmare first-half turned was the undoing of Taiwan as the Blue Wings lost to Sri Lanka in the final game of their AFC Cup qualification group. The fact that Sri Lanka— ranked 195th out of 211th in the FIFA world rankings— have now won both the meetings between the two sides in the group should be a cause for real concern for Taiwan. National teams can and have rebuilt after difficult moments like this but the question will be if the CTFA regards results like today as a wake up call or just another defeat that will be forgotten in time.

In Matt Ross’ second game in charge, the Australian sprung a couple of surprises, including the insertion of debutant Jason Hsu straight into the starting line as part of a 4-2-3-1 formation that also saw Yu Yao-hsing, Ange Kouamé, Emilio Estevez and Huang Wei-chieh lead the line upfront. And for the first few minutes, Taiwan looked positive as they moved the ball around in search of openings.

But then disaster struck with eleven minutes played. Dillon De Silva, who had tormented Taiwan in their last meeting in Colombo, was starting to make an impact down the left flank. When he was fouled for a free kick, the subsequent dead ball was headed home by Garrett Kelly.

As a shower of heavy rain drifted over the stadium, the omens were not good and things got worse when Chen Po-liang pulled up after a collision in midfield and had to be substitued. 

Amid the confusion, Sri Lanka struck again as De Silva and Rahul Suresh combined well down the left before Niloshan Senthurvasan found the corner of the net with a firmly struck shot. In the space of eight minutes, Taiwan were two goals down and without their captain.

In a similar fashion to the first half, Taiwan came out after the break with gusto and once again looked menacing. That was until the fifty-third minute when Sri Lanka yet again broke down the left-hand side and Senthurvasan’s cross was turned into his own net by the unfortunate Chris Tiao.

But with nothing else to lose, Taiwan suddenly start to find some genuine momentum. Barely a minute after giving up an own goal, Tiao made things right by getting to the byline and finding Yu with a perfect cross that was nodded home for a belated but deserved Taiwan goal. 

To their credit, Taiwan kept coming and whether by accident or design, the Blue Wings were constantly overloading the left-hand side of the field before launching cross after cross into the penalty box.

Sensing that the homeside were regaining the momentum, Sri Lanka played it safe and started sitting deep. When Senthurvasan was subbed out with twenty-odd minutes to play, the Sri Lankan manager embraced him like they had already won the game and all they had to do was to play out the clock.

Indeed, Sri Lanka did just that, with Kelly sitting at the base of a five-man midfield and hacking down anyone that came by him or trying to goad people into yellow cards with his gamesmanship. Even as a remarkable ten minutes of extra-time was announced, the visitors simply sat eleven men behind the ball and wasted time via timely substitutions and some remarkably coincidental issues with cramp. 

Then at full-time, an otherwise supportive and vocal home crowd went silent for the first time. For the entirety of the contest, every positive move had been applauded as well as various chants of ‘Go Taiwan’, which felt especially timely after what happened at the AFC Womens Finals a fortnight earlier. But for a few seconds, it dawned on everyone that Taiwan had lost to a team they could have beaten. 

With competitive international football now over until 2027, the team will have time to figure out what went wrong in this game but also this qualification round. With enough time to schedule friendly contests for later this year, things can also be tweaked on the field too. But as the bottom end of Asian football continues to improve, tonight was a reminder that there are no easy games and Taiwan cannot afford to switch off for a second against anyone in the region.

Photo Credit: AFC