Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Tashkent: Coach Jose Maria Pazos has praised his Uzbekistan’s warrior spirit as the AFC Futsal Championship hosts claimed a 3-0 quarter-final win over Iraq on Wednesday to book a semi-final meeting with Thailand and qualification for the FIFA Futsal World Cup.
Dilshod Rakhmatov scored twice while Nodir Elibaev was also on target as Pazos’s side sealed victory at a vibrant Uzbekistan Stadium.
And with Thailand recording a 6-1 win over Australia in their quarter-final, Uzbekistan will return to Uzbekistan Stadium on Friday eyeing a place in Sunday’s final.
“Historically we lose in the quarter-finals, so I think there has been a mental block previously; I hope this has now disappeared and we can play without pressure,” said Pazos.
“It was not a good game and six or seven of the players are still struggling with the flu so I want to praise them because they fought like warriors.
“But today was not a game to play well; it was a game to win. We can’t talk about tactics too much because it was an emotional game in which the players were nervous.”
Uzbekistan advanced to the last eight after claiming successive wins against Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon before maintaining their 100% record with their fourth victory of the campaign over Iraq.
“We spoke before the game about scoring goals. We knew that physically Iraq always go down a little in the second half; we wanted to wear them down step by step,” added Pazos.
“We conceded more chances than we expected in the first half; they had four or five very good chances.
“Iraq defended very tightly, but we were able to open them up more in the second half and we created better chances. We controlled the game much better.”
Match report: Uzbekistan 3-0 Iraq
Iraq qualified for only their second ever quarter-final at the AFC Futsal Championship after finishing runner-ups in Group B behind Iran.
But following their defeat to the hosts, Haitham Abbas’s side will have to re-group to keep their FIFA Futsal World Cup dream alive ahead of Thursday’s fifth place play-off semi-final against Australia.
“In futsal you have to take your chances to score because if you don’t the other team will,” said Abbas.
“My players performed very well in the first half, but the finishing by the strikers was not good. I don’t think they showed the right mentality.
“We tried to make sure our performance remained high in the second half, but Uzbekistan took their chances and we didn’t.
“But we have already told the players to put this match behind them because tomorrow we now have a very important game that we must prepare for and try to win.”
Photo: AFC