Saudi Arabia coach Joaquim ’Kika’ Filho claimed that the late change of opponents from Yemen to Japan left him no time to prepare his players for Sunday’s match against the defending champions.

Yemen were expelled from the competition having been found guilty of fielding an overage player in the group stages and the Saudis consequently found themselves facing the Japanese rather than their Gulf rivals.

"We were preparing the team for the match against Yemen and we only received the news about playing against Japan at 11:00 am this morning," said Filho, whose team went down 2-0 at the MHSK stadium.

"This affected us negatively. The players were focusing on Yemen and they were not ready for Japan.

"We didn’t have time to study Japan or their tactics and we couldn’t show the players Japan’s matches in the group stage.

"The game was tight and we lost against a tough team," he added.

Japan scored both their goals in the first-half as Kenyu Sugimoto broke the deadlock in the 38th minute before Saudi Arabia midfielder Abdullah Otayf put through his own net just before the interval.

"Japan scored the first goal from a clear foul while the second goal came from an own goal by our player.

"In the second-half we produced a good performance and we had some chances to score but we didn’t convert them.

"Our players did well and I would like to thank them for their effort."

Meanwhile, Japan coach Yutaka Ikeuchi was delighted that his side achieved the primary objective of reaching the AFC U-16 Championship semi-finals and with it a place in next year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup finals.

"Our main goal was to qualify to next year’s World Cup and we did that perfectly," Ikeuchi said.

"We played well today while at the same time Saudi Arabia produced a good performance and their players showed good skills.

"We made some changes to the starting line up as we gave Keisuke Kanda a chance to play in place of Takumi Miyayoshi, who I planned to field in the second- half of the game," he added.

"At half-time and after taking a 2-0 lead, I told our players that we should continue our attacking game and that’s what happened as we created a lot of chances but we couldn’t add more goals.

"We prepared the players psychologically and physically and I think that we won the game because we prepared well as I told our players that’s why we have to practice seriously regardless of our opponents."