On the night of January 20, U23 China defeated U23 Vietnam with a score of 3-0 to participate in a final match of the AFC U23 Championship for the first time.
Notably, the achievement of the young team from the billion-population country to reach the final is very impressive. Accordingly, U23 China has had 4 goals and has not conceded any goals after 5 matches.
The excellence of goalkeeper Li Hao along with a disciplined and effective defense has helped coach Antonio Puche's team show an impressive performance up to this point in the tournament.
With reaching the final of the 2026 AFC U23 Championship without conceding any goals, U23 China is facing a great opportunity to write their name into the history of the AFC U23 Championships.
Accordingly, if they continue to keep a clean sheet in the final against U23 Japan and win the championship, U23 China will be the 2nd team in the history of the AFC U23 Championship finals to win the championship without conceding any goals.
Previously, the 2022 AFC U23 Championship was the tournament where the U23 Saudi Arabia team won the championship with a record of not conceding any goals.
They beat U23 Tajikistan 5-0, drew U23 Japan 0-0, beat U23 UAE 2-0 in the group stage, beat U23 Vietnam 2-0 in the quarterfinals, beat U23 Australia 2-0 in the semi-finals and beat U23 Uzbekistan 2-0 in the final.
At the tournament held 2 years later, U23 Uzbekistan also reached the final with a clean sheet record, but then they lost 0-1 to U23 Japan, thereby only conceding 1 goal throughout the tournament but was a goal conceded in the final and finished second overall.
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