Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Thimpu: Bhutan famously booked their place in the second round of joint qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup with a 2-1 win over Sri Lanka on Tuesday, a result which saw them advance 3-1 on aggregate over the two legs.
Bhutan had taken a 1-0 advantage into Tuesday’s encounter at the Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu thanks to Tshering Dorji’s late goal in the first leg on March 12, and they duly doubled that advantage when Chencho Gyeltshen opened the scoring for the hosts after only five minutes.
Sri Lanka, who were 5-2 winners when the two sides met at the 2013 SAFF Championship in Nepal, replied on 34 minutes through Zohar Zarwan, but Gyeltshen bagged his second of the game late on as the side ranked 209th in the world by FIFA claimed a place in the next phase to keep their World Cup and AFC Asian Cup dreams well and truly alive.
Five other Round 1 winners will advance to the second round where the 34 highest-ranked teams await. The 40 nations will be drawn into eight groups of five teams and compete according to a double round robin format.
The Round 2 qualification matches will be held between June 11, 2015 and March 29, 2016.
The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) will advance to the 2019 Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + 1 slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup finals.
Photo: AFP