Day 3 review

Men

Iran produced a stunning late comeback to force a draw against Tokyo champions Brazil with a Milad Souri strike with two seconds left earning them a famous result.

Having lost 15-5 to Brazil in their last meeting, Iran’s number seven was their hero, alongside Nematollah Sarafraz who scored four times in the men’s competition’s first draw.

Brazil stay unbeaten after their first dropped points of the competition but this was a disappointing result, having led by three goals with just over a minute remaining.

There was a first win in Paris for USA as they defeated hosts France 5-4 with Tyler Merren scoring three goals and saving a vital second-half penalty.

It was an important three points for Keith Young’s side after losing to Brazil while France remain without a point after the group stage in their maiden Games.

Their defeats have been by a combined eight goals, and Elias Ouni, one of the breakout stars of the competition thinks the Games can help the sport in the country: ‘We’ve been playing for seven years now so to perform here on the highest level is the icing on the cake’.

China earned their second win at this year’s competition by beating Egypt 7-4 thanks to four goals from Yang Mingyuan, taking his total to double figures.

Deyi Yu also scored his first Paralympic goals with a hat-trick and during his first Games he wants to ensure the sport is more widely recognised: ‘I want to spread the sport’s spirit to a wider audience to show what we can do’.

The inexperienced Egypt team had to cope with an injury to Sayed Awwad and conceding two penalties for illegal coaching, the second of which saw coach Mohamed Farahat sent from the court after contesting the decision.

Women

In a meeting of two Paralympic debutants, it was South Korea who came out on top 6-1 to claim their first-ever win at the sport’s highest level.

In the face of inspired home support, they bounced back from a narrow defeat to Japan in their opening game to secure an historic victory with five second-half goals including a Seonhwa Sim hat-trick adding to her earlier strike.

Turkey finally got their tournament back on track with a first win as they overcame Israel 5-4 in a tense encounter which went down to the final throw.

A first-half hat-trick from Sevda Altunoluk along with a Fatma Guler strike had given the reigning champions a four-goal cushion at the break but they had to survive an inspired Israel recovery to finish the group stage on four points.

Israel came back strongly in the second period with Or Mizrahi crediting their defence: ‘We were more determined in that second-half that we would close up the gaps and make sure nothing was coming in which helped us in attack to find the small holes in Turkey’s defence as there’s not many!’ It will help us in the next game with the belief that we can defend our goal so we need to stay in that mindset throughout the game.’

There was a second victory in as many games for China who saw off Brazil, their conquerors in overtime in the Tokyo 2020 quarter-finals.

Having beaten Turkey 7-5 in their opener, it was another two-goal win for the 2023 World Games winners with Zhenhua Cao netting her first goal of the competition either side of a Chunyan Wang brace while Brazil finish the initial stage with a solitary point.