Updated January 30, 2019 10:14:53

The catchphrase of the 2019 Asian Cup is 'Bringing Asia Together', but that comradery was not in evidence in Tuesday's semi-final between Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

Qatar won the politically charged match against the tournament hosts 4-0 to advance to its first Asian Cup final, but was forced to contend with shoes being thrown from the stands by aggrieved home supporters.

A regional boycott of Qatar, led by Saudi Arabia, has affected the team's logistics at the Asian Cup and made it difficult for the country's fans to attend games. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt are also part of the boycott.

Qatar has been accused of sponsoring terrorist organisations, but it strongly denies that. It's all playing out against the backdrop of Saudi Arabia's rivalry with Qatar for influence.

Saudi Arabia said last year that it took the decision to cut diplomatic ties due to Qatar's "embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilising the region".

The Qataris, however, have frequently denied accusations that they support extremists.

The complicated diplomatic situation has lead to two so-called 'blockade derbies' taking place at this year's competition, when Qatar faced Saudi Arabia and UAE.

In both matches, Qatar came out on top, beating Saudi Arabia in a relatively uneventful game 2-0 in the group stages of the competition before the 4-0 rout of UAE on Tuesday.

It was the second goal of the match against the hosts that prompted the UAE fans to start throwing their shoes at the Qatari players, an act considered to be an insult.

"It is not an easy situation but I think, I have to say that in general it was fair play," Qatar coach Felix Sanchez said.

"This is only a few people that you have to take in consideration."

The Asian Football Confederation said it could launch an investigation.

"Any incident of this nature will be contained in the official match report which will then be investigated by the AFC," the governing body said.

Photo: Throwing shoes at someone is an act considered to be a grave insult. (AP: Hassan Ammar)

Qatar reaches historic final

The Qataris, who will host the World Cup in 2022, have won all six of their matches and have yet to concede a goal — the first country to do that at the continental soccer championship.

"I would like to apologise to the UAE fans for the result," said UAE coach Alberto Zaccheroni, who lead his side to a 1-0 victory over the Socceroos in the quarter-finals.

"We all made mistakes but everyone did their very best. We wanted to make the UAE people happy and we tried until the end. However, we have to admit that the Qatar team was better."

Boualem Khoukhi gave Qatar the lead in the 22nd minute, and Almoez Ali doubled the advantage 15 minutes later.

Ali's goal was his eighth of the tournament, equalling the record set by Iran forward Ali Daei in 1996 when the Asian Cup was also hosted by the UAE. The 22-year-old Ali will have a chance to break the record against Japan in the final on Friday.

Qatar added two more goals late in the match, the first from Hasan Al Haydos in the 80th minute and the last from Hamid Ismaeil just seconds after coming off the bench in the dying moments of the game.

The UAE played the final seconds with 10 men after Ismail Ahmed was sent off.

Japan crushed tournament favourites Iran 3-0 in the other semi-final.

Four-time champion Japan has never lost when reaching the decider in an Asian Cup.

AP/ABC

Topics: sport, soccer, politics-and-government, united-arab-emirates, qatar

First posted January 30, 2019 10:08:22