Lebanon Beats Tajikistan to Reach Quarter-finals of AFC Futsal Championship

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Lebanon are one match away from playing the FIFA Futsal World Cup after booking a place in the quarterfinals of the ongoing AFC Futsal Championship with a 2-1 win over Tajikistan who are returning home with a single victory over Chinese Taipei.

In the Sunday’s last encounter of Group B, Lebanon scored a goal apiece in each half to seal the victory, which takes them to the quarterfinal of the championship which will be played on Tuesday against Group A winner – most probably Thailand. Japan won Group B and will be facing Group A runners-up.

Lebanon’s Hassan Zeitoun was just two seconds off the tournament’s fastest goalscoring record as he gave an ideal start to the Lebanon team scoring from the angle inside first eight seconds. 

Yusuke Komiyama had broken the championship’s fastest goalscoring record yesterday by scoring inside the six seconds and coincidentally against Tajikistan.

 Despite going down early, Tajikistan were good in all departments with their brilliant goalie Mirali Sharipov making some classy saves of the championship.

“We must fix it before the quarterfinal as I don’t remember how many chances we squandered,” Lebanon’s Spanish coach Francisco Araujo told www.the-afc.com .

“Scoring early goals is not always good as we faced some tough time against Tajikistan but overall our players disappointed me in front of the goal. But if you talk about the win and its significance, it’s huge,” Araujo said.

Tajikistan pegged one back in the 9th minute when Orzu Dodkhudoev ran down the channel dribbling past two Lebanon defenders and releasing an acute ball to Mansur Mamedbabaev.

Having a brilliant first half and part of second half, Tajikistan goalie Sharipov finally made a mistake to allow Lebanon back into the match. After getting a ball on the right flank, Hayssam Atwi guided the ball past Sharipov as the goalie could have done better to stop Atwi’s strike that decided the match.

And a late red card to Orzu Dodkhudoev also did not help Tajikistan.

“Sometime in football or futsal luck becomes a key factor and today was the same, we did not have it,” Tajik coach Damir Kamaletdinov told www.the-afc.com.