Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Dubai: Iran outlined their status as the overwhelming tournament favourites with an emphatic 9-0 win over Australia on Sunday that set up a 2012 AFC Futsal Championship quarter-final showdown with Uzbekistan in what will be a meeting between the 2010 tournament's champions and runners-up.
After dominating the majority of the opening exchanges of the first-period Iran broke the deadlock in the 11th minute when skipper Vahid Shamsaee released Mohammad Taheri down the right channel he drilled the ball past Angelo Konstantinou.
Iran continued to lay siege on Australia's goal and after Futsal's top international goal-scorer Shamsaee had made it 2-0 Ali Hassanzadeh knocked in Ahmad Esameilpour's penetrating cross for Iran's third.
With four minutes left on the clock Ghodrat Bahadori waltzed through the Australian defence to make 4-0 with a superb individual effort.
Iran continued from where they left off with Taheri latching onto Mohammad Keshavaraz's flick to score his second and Iran's fifth before Hossein Tayebi became the fifth Iranian to get his name on the scoresheet in the 31st minute.
Two minutes later it was 7-0 with Hassanzadeh bagging his brace after being set up by Bahadori and with less than three minutes left Javad Asgharimoghaddami got in on the scoring act but as fitting his iconic status in the sport it was Asian futsal legend Shamsaee the had the final say scoring Iran's ninth and final goal.