The recent AFC U-19 Women's Championship, which also served as the Asian qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Germany 2010, witnessed the re-emergence of Japan, who won the inaugural competition back in 2002.
After dethroning defending champions Korea DPR in the semi-finals to book their passage to next year's finals, the Young Nadeshiko went on to edge Korea Republic 2-1 in Wednesday's final to recapture the trophy; their first since the success of seven years ago.
Japan's road to the title was a bumpy one. Pitted against strongly favoured hosts China and Australia in the group stage, Norio Sasaki's charges finished second in their section to progress to the last four with two identical 1-1 draws against the two teams either side of a 5-0 thrashing of Chinese Taipei.
Despite their unconvincing progression to the final four, they won the crucial semi-final meeting against Korea DPR with livewire striker Mana Iwabuchi scoring the only goal. In the ensuing final, Iwabuchi made the difference once again by scoring the match and tournament-winning goal three minutes from time after the two sides were locked at 1-1.
"Against all the strong opponents in Asia our team has fought right to the end so I am very pleased with my players who have done their best," said Sasaki.
"Our players played very well and tried their best throughout each of the games. The other three teams that got to the last four are all very strong teams. We are actually very close to each other and this success was not easy for us but we are happy. Now we start from the beginning. We are through to the World Cup so we must prepare for this from now."
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