TAICHUNG, Taiwan – It will be an all-Asia battle to determine the first-ever world champion in the 21-and-under age category, with host Chinese Taipei and Japan set to battle Sunday at 18:30 (local time) at Intercontinental Stadium, where more than 12,000 energetic and thunderous fans are expected to be on hand.

The gold medal finale will be broadcast nationally in Japan via J-Sports and Nippon BS Broadcasting, and across Taiwan by Videoland. Global audiences can turn to internetv.tv to tune in to the live webcast.

Baseball’s Official World Championships, which are governed by the WBSC and its international baseball division, IBAF, have been staged across 12U, 15U, 18U and professional — “Premier 12” (2015) and the World Baseball Classic — categories, but the event in Taichung marks the expansion of the Baseball World Cup platform into the youth/professional category.

The 21U showcase features players representing their countries from top professional leagues, such as the Australian Baseball League (ABL), Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Mexican Baseball League (LMB) and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

Chinese Taipei and Japan have emerged as the finalists of a group of 11 nations — representatives from the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania — that have converged in Taichung to try to capture 21U world title.

Samurai Japan defeated Chinese Taipei, 6-2, on Saturday, giving the host nation their first loss and giving Japan the right to be the home team in the gold medal finale.

With at least a silver medal guaranteed, history is being made with Japan (7-0) taking over the No. 1 position in the world rankings, bypassing USA, who will drop to No. 2.

Also on 21U Baseball World Cup championship Sunday, world No. 8 South Korea will be taking on No. 28 Nicaragua for the bronze medal, while No. 15 Australia and No. 26 Czech Republic will battle for 5th and 6th place. Finishing at least in 4th place, Nicaragua will jump ten spots to No. 18 in the world rankings.

Final standings for 7th -11th place were finalized Saturday:

7. Italy
8. Venezuela
9. Netherlands
10. New Zealand
11. Mexico