Qatar fall to Iraq

AFC – DOHA, Qatar failed to give their new Brazilian coach Sebastiao Lazaroni a winning start after going down to former Asian champions Iraq 1-0 in a friendly international on Friday.

Lazaroni recently replaced Serbian Milovan Rajevac after a string of mediocre results that saw the Maroons scrape past Vietnam and qualify for the third qualifying round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

The only goal of the match in which the Iraqis clearly were the better side came in the 35th minute when Salam Shakar Ali, who plays for Qatari club Al Khor, found the net past the Qatari goalkeeper.

Qatar have been grouped with Bahrain, Indonesia and Iran and travel to Manama to kick off their quest on September for a place in the final round of qualifying. Iraq have China, Jordan and Singapore for company in their pool and start their campaign against Jordan on the same day.