Iran coach Ali Sanei has urged his men to think they are playing a final against Thailand when they meet the South East Asian champions in the last four of the AFC Futsal Championship at Al Wasl Club in Dubai.
Iran are red hot favourites for an 11th Asian title and with nearly two-thirds of the crowd inside the Al Shabab Indoor Sports Complex backing them, the Persians were at home in their quarter-final with Uzbekistan, a match that was a repeat of the 2010 final, which they won 8-3.
On Tuesday night it finished 6-3 in favour of Iran, and later Sanei said the match felt like a final. He acknowledged Thailand, who beat Lebanon 5-3, are sure to cause them some problems when they go head-to-head later tonight.
“It was a very difficult game and felt like a final for us in this tournament, but we had prepared and we got the result we wanted. But it’s going to be the same in the next game with Thailand,” said Sanei.
Hamid Ahmadi opened the scoring for Iran in the fifth minute, bundling captain Vahid Shamsaee’s cross over the line.
Ahmad Esmaeilpour made it 2-0 two minutes later with a shot that gave Uzbek ‘keeper Rustam Umarov absolutely no chance, before Hassan Zadeh added a third on the stroke of half-time when he slotted inside the bottom right hand corner following a through ball from Shamsaee.
The Uzbeks pulled one back two minutes after the restart with Shuhrat Tojiboev tapping in at the far post, but Iran restored their three-goal advantage through Mohammed Taheri.
Tojiboev got his second, sneaking it past ‘keeper Mostafa Naziri to make it 4-2, Nodir Elibaev turned villain for Uzbekistan as the ball clipped him for an own goal to once again take Iran three goals clear.
Ahmadi completed his hat-trick shooting into an open Uzbek goal to make it 6-2, but the three goal difference was again restored after Dilshod Rakhmatov tapped into an open net.
Meanwhile, in other quarter-final games, Japan beat Kyrgyzstan 1-0 while Australia prevailed over Kuwat 3-2 in extra time. Iran meet Thailand and Japan face Australia in the semi-finals today.
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