Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Vientiane: Laos were unable to build on their opening draw with regional rivals Myanmar as the South East Asian side crashed to a 2-0 home defeat to Lebanon in their second match in Group G of the 2018 FIFA World Cup/2019 AFC Asian Cup joint-qualifiers on Tuesday.
Lebanon had already tasted defeat at home in the qualifiers and were looking to make up ground after they had lost 1-0 to Kuwait in their opening fixture last week and the Cedars made the perfect start to getting their campaign back on track when Mohamad Ghaddar put the visitors one up with just five minutes at the National Sports Complex Stadium played.
The early goal from Ghaddar, who is no stranger to South East Asian football having had spells in Malaysia with Kelantan and Felda United, was all that separated the two sides up until the 75th minute when Romania-based 22-year-old Fayez Chamsine sealed the win with Lebanon’s second.
Lebanon’s victory created a three-way tie at the top of Group G with the 2000 AFC Asian Cup hosts, Kuwait and Korea Republic all level on three points with the ASEAN duo of Laos and Myanmar, who lost 2-0 to the Koreans in Tuesday’s other Group G fixture, both two points adrift of the leading pack.
The participating teams will compete according to a double round robin format, with the Round 2 qualification matches being held between June 11, 2015 and March 29, 2016.
The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) will advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA 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