Yousef Ahmed scored twice to give Qatar a 2-0 win over China on Wednesday and boost the host nation’s chances of advancing to the knockout round of the Asian Cup.
Ahmed gave Qatar the lead in the 27th minute and added the second in first-half injury time.
Qatar needed a win after losing their first match and went on the attack from the start, repeatedly breaking down China’s defense in the opening 30 minutes.
PHOTO: AFP
China, which beat Kuwait in their opening match, could not regroup in the second half against Qatar.
“We showed the real face of the Qatar team in this match,” Qatar coach Burno Metsu said. “I am very proud of their strong performance and we will try to do the same against Kuwait and advance to the quarterfinals.”
Qatar has billed the continental tournament as a test run for the 2022 World Cup, awarded to the tiny, oil-rich Gulf nation last month. Matsu’s squad has come under fire after losing the tournament’s opening match to face an early exit.
There was no other choice but to win against China, the French coach said.
“We gave our best and scored two goals and, although we missed many chances after that, I was happy,” Matsu said.
China coach Gao Hongbao is satisfied with the overall performance of a squad that has some of the youngest and least experienced players in the tournament. Gao blamed China’s malfunctioning attack for the defeat.
“We did not apply enough pressure in the game, so Qatar was able to organize attacks easily,” Gao said, adding that, with no player over 30, the match was still “a good experience for our young team.
“Our players can learn from this match. We lost the game, but losing is part of playing and we can do -better in the next game, which is more important to us,” Gao said.
China will next play Uzbekistan and Qatar will play Kuwait.
Uzbekistan lead Group A with six points, three more than China and Qatar. Kuwait have zero points.
At the last Asian Cup, China failed to advance from the group stage. The country’s soccer fortunes have dipped since 2002, with corruption and management problems compounded by the team failing to qualify for the World Cup in 2006 and last year.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later