Japan Stun Venezuela 2-1 With Wild Stoppage-Time Penalty Reversal

Japan’s national football team pulled off one of the strangest finishes of the international window on September 28, beating Venezuela 2-1 in a Kirin Challenge Cup friendly in Hiroshima after a stoppage-time video review flipped a penalty decision from one end of the pitch to the other.

The match at Hiroshima’s Peace Wing Stadium looked headed for a draw. Venezuela had taken the lead early in the second half when Kevin Kelsy finished off a move down the right, only for Ayase Ueda to equalise almost immediately. For much of the game Japan had controlled possession but struggled to convert, with striker Keisuke Goto wasting a clear one-on-one chance in the first half.

Japan’s plans were disrupted inside five minutes when Koki Kumazaka went down injured and had to be carried off on a stretcher, forcing an early substitution. The hosts kept pressing but could not find a way through a stubborn Venezuelan defence until Ueda’s equaliser changed the mood.

Then came the chaos. Deep into added time, Japanese defender Junnosuke Suzuki lunged into a challenge inside his own penalty area and the referee immediately pointed to the spot, giving Venezuela a chance to win it. But VAR intervened. After reviewing the footage, the referee decided that a Venezuelan player had committed a foul in the build-up — inside Venezuela’s box. The original penalty was wiped out, and Japan were awarded one instead.

Ueda stepped up and converted, completing his brace and sealing a 2-1 win that had looked unlikely moments earlier. The sequence — a penalty given, taken away, and handed to the other team in the same passage of play — is about as rare as it gets in international football, and it instantly became the talking point of the night.

For Japan, the result extends a solid run in the Kirin Challenge Cup, a friendly tournament used to test squad depth ahead of major competitions. The team’s ability to keep pushing until the final whistle, even after an early injury forced a reshuffle, will please the coaching staff. Ueda’s two-goal performance underlined his growing importance in attack.

Venezuela, meanwhile, will feel hard done by. They had defended well for long stretches, taken their goal clinically through Kelsy, and were seconds away from at least a draw — until the review went against them. Friendlies are not supposed to hurt this much, but the manner of the defeat will sting.

Elsewhere on the same night, South Korea found themselves 0-4 down at home to Uruguay, with Darwin Núñez scoring twice, including a header from a right-wing cross. It was a bruising evening for Asian sides against South American opposition, and a reminder that these September friendlies can produce scorelines that flatter one team and flay the other.

For neutral fans, the Japan–Venezuela finish was the highlight: a reminder that in football, a single video review can rewrite the last minute of a match. Japan travel on with the win; Venezuela travel on with a story they will not want to tell.