Palestine held South Korea to a well-deserved 0-0 draw in their opening Group C match in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.

The remarkable result in Seoul continues the rise of Palestinian football, which had peaked earlier this year with qualification for the knockout stage of the AFC Cup for the first time in the tournament held in Qatar.

Palestine’s appearance at the group stage of the World Cup qualifiers is also a first, but little hope was given to their match against the AFC’s record qualifiers with 11 appearances at football’s global showpiece event.

South Korea boasted many of their star names including striker Son Heung-min — captain of Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League — but were unable to breach the Palestinian defence.

The odds were also heavily stacked against Palestine given that South Korea have not lost a home qualifier since 2013 while their hosts were 14th in the Fifa ranking — that in comparison to the Lions of Canaan ranking in 96th place.

Despite those hurdles, Palestine looked to have broken the deadlock in the 22nd minute only for the effort to be correctly adjudged as off-side.

Japan rout China

Japan cruised to a winning start in the third phase of Asia’s preliminaries as Hajime Moriyasu’s side thrashed China 7-0 at Saitama Stadium.

Wataru Endo and Kaoru Mitoma gave Japan a two-goal lead at the interval in the Group C clash before Takumi Minamino hit a second-half brace. Junya Ito, Daizen Maeda and Takefusa Kubo added to the scoreline as China were comprehensively outplayed. Endo put Japan in front in the 12th minute after Chinese goalkeeper Wang Dalei had kept out Ritsu Doan’s header seconds earlier.

The Liverpool midfielder was left unmarked at the resulting corner and he made no mistake when Kubo delivered the ball, scoring with a clinical header.

Doan went close to adding a second in the 33rd minute while Hidemasa Morita hit the side-netting with two minutes left in the half.

The Japanese did manage to double their lead before the interval, Mitoma meeting Doan’s curling centre to head the ball back across the helpless Wang.

Seven minutes into the second half Moriyasu’s side extended their lead when Mitoma’s pass released Minamino into the penalty area and the Monaco forward bent his strike beyond Wang.

Minamino claimed his second of the night six minutes later with a perfect finish into the bottom corner.

With inputs from Reuters