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TOKYO, JAPAN - JAN. 31: Substitute Takuma Asano struck twice in the second half as Japan came back from two goals down to beat archrivals South Korea 3-2 to win the Asian Under-23 Championship on Saturday. It all looked gloomy for Japan after Kwon Chang Hoon opened the scoring in the 20th minute for South Korea before Jin Seong Uk doubled their lead just two minutes into the second half. But Asano, who took the pitch on the hour for Ryota Oshima, closed the gap in the 67th minute with his first of the evening from a through pass by Shinya Yajima. A minute later, Yajima turned scorer to restore parity by nodding in a cross from left-back Ryosuke Yamanaka, turning the tide for Makoto Teguramori's Japan. With nine minutes to go, Asano put the young Blue Samurai up for good by finishing off a counterattack keyed by Shoya Nakajima, who was named the tournament MVP after his two-goal heroics in Japan's quarterfinal victory over Iran. "I hadn't been able to come up with a goal until now so it feels incredible to have scored when it all mattered and help the team to a win," said Asano, who was the J-League's Best Young Player last season for champions Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Japan, South Korea and Iraq, who beat tournament hosts Qatar in the third-place match a day earlier, have qualified out of Asia for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The 16-team men's football competition starts Aug. 4, ahead of the opening ceremony. Japan hope to medal for the first time since 1968; at the previous Games in London, they lost to South Korea in the bronze-medal match. "It turned out to be a pretty thrilling game," Teguramori said. "But maybe we were destined to win." "This tournament really was about payback for us against some teams. It wore on us that we hadn't been able to win as much as we wanted to up until now. We knew it wasn't going to be easy but we found a way." - This video shows team members of Japan Under 23 who answer questions at a news conference in Haneda airport on Sunday.