Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Isfahan: Qadsia cruised through to the quarter-finals of the AFC Futsal Club Championship on Saturday evening with a comprehensive 9-1 thrashing of Al Khaleej that saw the side from the United Arab Emirates exit Group A of the 2015 tournament.
Abdulrahman Altawail scored a hat-trick, Dario and Mohammad Taheri scored twice each while Hamad Hayat and Abdulrahman Al Wadi were also on target as Qadsia recorded a win that also ensured hosts Tasisat Daryaei advance to the last eight.
Yousif Mohamed scored in the eighth minute for Al Khaleej to cancel out Alwadi’s opener, but it turned out to be little more than a consolation for the Emiratis, who lost their opening game 8-1 against Tasisat.
“This game was tough today because we knew the Emirates team would play a lot in defence,” said Qadsia coach Fabio Cortez, whose team will face hosts Tasisat on Sunday to determine who will top Group A.
“I knew they wouldn’t want to concede too many goals, that they’d stay back and not press us so it would take more effort to play against this team.
“We’re looking to finish in first place. We don’t know what will happen in the next game and so we needed to score more goals than the Tasisat team did against Al Khaleej.
“In this situation, this will change the mind of the coach of Tasisat and put him under pressure because now he needs to win against us.”
Altawail gave Qadsia the perfect start in the sixth minute when his low shot beat goalkeeper Talal Khaled but only two minutes later the scores were level when Mohamed slid in at the far post to redirect Rashid Obaid’s cross over the line.
The game remained competitive until the end of the first half, by which time Qadsia had opened up a two-goal cushion with Dario shooting over the goalkeeper in the 14th minute before Hayat netted on the stroke of the interval.
Dario scored his second from close range two minutes after the restart and, three minutes later, Taheri struck on the turn from just outside the area. Altawail scored his team’s sixth in the 27th minute with a finish at the far post and Taheri thumped home a right-footed effort to further extend his team’s lead.
Al Wadi added the eighth in the final five minutes and three minutes later Altawail completed his hat-trick from close range.
“I’m glad our players were able to get the experience of playing in these two games, even though we lost against the Iranians and the Kuwaitis,” said Al Khaleej coach Anwar Mohamed.
“We weren’t ready for this game. We had six injured players and three foreign players who couldn’t come to Iran for this game.
“We have played against some strong teams, some strong players physically, there were a lot of physical clashes in this game. But also we played against two different types of teams. Sometimes we can say that in losing there can be some benefits for the losers.”