as well. The quarter-finals saw entire of East Asia slumped out. Defending champions Japan was crushed down by Kuwait, China lost after a seven-goal thriller with Saudi Arabia, while South Korea suffered a denting 2–6 loss to Iran, with Iran scored five goals in the second half. The host UAE continued its quest to win the trophy with a successful 1–0 win over Iraq thanked for the golden goal of Abdulrahman Ibrahim. The semi-finals became a West Asian affair and rematches of group A and B: Saudi Arabia took a successful revenge on Iran following the group stage, beating the Iranians on penalty, while the UAE killed Kuwaiti dream for the second time with another 1–0 win to set up final with Saudi Arabia. Iran eventually took third place after beating Kuwait on penalty, the match ended 1–1 draw. The final between the UAE and Saudi Arabia happened to be boring than expected. The two teams played defensively and lacking enthusiastic attacks in front of 60,000 spectators. Eventually, penalty had to be brought out, where the UAE missed two while Saudi Arabia only missed one, thus Saudi Arabia was crowned for its third trophy in the country's fourth consecutive Asian Cup final. Thanked for the win, Saudi Arabia gained automatic berth to qualify for the 2000 AFC Asian Cup held in Lebanon. Venues First round All times are UAE time (UTC+4) Group A Group B Group C Third-placed qualifiers At the end of the first stage, a comparison was made between the third placed teams of each group. The two best third-placed teams advanced to the quarter-finals. Iraq (best third-place) and South Korea (second best third-place) qualified for the quarter-finals. Knockout stage All times are UAE time (UTC+4) Quarter-finals Semi-finals Third place play-off Final Statistics Goalscorers With eight goals, Iran's Ali Daei is the top scorer of the tournament. In total, 80 goals were scored by 47 different players, with one of them credited as an own goal. 8 goals Ali Daei 6 goals Jasem Al-Huwaidi 4 goals Fahad Al-Mehallel 3 goals Hwang Sun-Hong Hassan Saeed 2 goals Zhang Enhua Widodo Putro Ronny Wabia Khodadad Azizi Karim Bagheri Haidar Mahmoud Laith Hussein Masakiyo Maezono Kim Do-Hoon Sami Al-Jaber Khalid Al-Temawi Yousuf Al-Thunayan Nader Joukhadar Adnan Al-Talyani 1 goal Gao Feng Ma Mingyu Li Bing Peng Weiguo Mehrdad Minavand Naeim Saadavi Hussam Fawzi Khalid Mohammed Sabbar Kazuyoshi Miura Hiroshi Nanami Naoki