Dubai: Iran continued their exceptional start of the campaign with yet another big margin 8-0 victory over Qatar to book a place in the semifinal after playing only two matches of the AFC Futsal Championship 2012.
The 10-time continental champions have already wrecked up 22 goals conceding two in the tournament. The Iran’s win also ensured Australia’s entry into the semifinal as both the sides will meet on Sunday to decide the Group C winner.
The bright aspect for Iran in the match was the return of goalscoring best from veteran Vahid Shamsaee who scored a brace in the 23rd and 31st minute. Vahid had missed out the Uzbekistan finals of AFC Futsal Championship in 2010.
Playing his first official international tournament, Hossein Tayebi also scored two goals while there were goal apiece for Mohammad Keshavarz, Hassan Ali Asghar, Mohammed Taheri and Ahmadi Hamid.
Iran were so dominant in the match that, they were 2-0 up in the second minute of the match with Al Rayyan forward Taheri scoring the goal only after 29 seconds. Keshavarz made his tally to three goals in the second minute and the floodgates opened.
“It turned up exactly how we expected,” Iran coach Sanei Arani Ali said. “We knew that Qatar would sit at the back and defend but we had to attack smartly,” he said adding that the match was like training for the Iranians.
“We will be having difficult matches in future so we must make sure that we avoid over doing things and burn out before those big ties,” he added.
His counterpart Abdel Benaim also admitted that there was a difference in the quality of those two opponents.
“We knew this coming because there is a huge gap between us and Iran. But I am happy with my players’ effort as the four second half goals came from mistakes meaning those could have been avoided,” Qatar’s Spanish coach Abdel Bennim said.
“I am not a magician and being debutant it’s a beginning so it will take time but I am sure these young boys would turn good once they are experienced as the average age of my team is just around 24. We have a big match coming against Korea Republic – big match in a sense that both the sides are desperate to go at least with something from the tournament.”
Iran will take on Australia at Al Wasl Stadium as the match would determine the winner of Group C while pointless Korea Republic and Qatar will try to earn first point in the last match of the campaign.