+ A
A -
Coach Sanchez tasks players to ensure Qatar’s qualification
IKOLI VICTOR
Doha
Coach Felix Sanchez says Qatar will work hard to qualify for the AFC U-23 Championship 2018 as the team just need a point from their last match against Syria to emerge as the group winners on Sunday to qualify for the tournament in China.
Qatar has six points from two matches while Syria is on four points. Turkmenistan has one point while India is yet to pick a point.
Turkmenistan would be hoping that Qatar beat Syria with a fine margin while they would be doing the job against India to qualify as one of the five best second-placed teams in the Asian qualifiers if they beat India with a wide margin.
A draw between Qatar and Syria will automatically place both sides as first and second in Group C.
Speaking ahead of the match on Sunday, Sanchez said,"We would work hard and our aim is to ensure qualification in the next game. Syria has very strong potential and it's going to be a tough game against them."
Sanchez says the lesson learnt from the India match would better prepare his side against a physically strong Syrian team."The India match was a good lesson for us to play well against Syria. It was a very tough game. We didn't feel comfortable in the first half. We failed to get behind our opponents, but if you evaluate the 90 minutes, we were the team who deserved to win," said Sanchez.
The hosts will rely on the service of Akram Afif who bagged a brace in their opener against Turkmenistan.
His chances were limited against India but his vision and contribution helped the team to take the full points.
If Almoez Ali gets the right delivery inside the box he will be too hot to handle as it was evidenced in the game against India. He won all the aerial battles inside the Indian box and his resilience paid off when he outwitted Indian keeper Vishal Kaith to score.
Against Turkmenistan, Syria was the better team for almost the whole of the first half and most of the second, but they lacked the cutting edge to take their chances.
Hussein Afash, Syria coach said after the match,"We were under pressure because every second day, there is a match and it affected the players. After playing a strong first match against India, we were back on the field. We tried to score in the first half, but we lost many chances and I hope we will not regret this result in the future.
"We must now wait for our match against Qatar and then wait for all the group matches to end to learn our fate."
Agamyradov Ahmet, Turkmenistan Head Coach was already doing permutations on one of several possible variations the group will look like and his team's chances.
"Very bad result for both of us. If we win the next match, we have a very slim chance of qualifying. Both teams were fighting to qualify but we couldn't win. We had a chance only if we win two matches. This one and the next one. But now, if Qatar win and we beat India by a big margin we have a chance of finishing second. But it won't be enough. Both teams could have won the match. We had two good chances but of course, Syria had more chances than my team."
