Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Hong Kong: Hong Kong opened their 2018 FIFA World Cup/2019 AFC Asian Cup Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2 campaign with a bang as they thrashed Bhutan 7-0.
Hong Kong led the visitors 4-0 at the half-time interval before adding three more goals including a penalty kick to claim three points at Mongkok Stadium on Thursday.
Jaimes McKee opened the scoring with 19 minutes passed in the game before Christian Kwesi doubled the advantage four minutes later. Lo Kwan Yee took it up to 3-0 on the 30th minute mark before Ju Yingzhi widened the gap on 42 minutes.
Lam Ka Wai took the score to 5-0 with a penalty four minutes after the restart before McKee completed his double on 57 minutes, with Godfred Karikari contributing Hong Kong’s seventh goal in the 68th minute.
Hong Kong will next take on the Maldives on June 16 while Bhutan will face off against China on the same day.
The teams in Round 2 will compete according to a double round robin format, and the qualification matches will be held from June 11, 2015 to March 29, 2016.
The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) will advance to the 2019 Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + 1 slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup finals.