Iran blanks Qatar to advance to quarterfinals

PressTV – DUBAI, The Iranian national futsal team has blanked Qatar 8-0 in its second match in the preliminary round of the 2012 AFC Futsal Championship in the United Arab Emirates.

Iran continued its outstanding start of the campaign with another big-margin victory at Dubai’s al-Shabab stadium on Saturday to book a berth in the quarterfinals after playing only two matches.

The Iranian side scored four goals in each half. Iranian veteran Vahid Shamsaee scored a brace while Hossein Tayyebi also scored two goals in his first official international tournament.

Mohammad Keshavarz, Ali-Asghar Hassanzadeh, Mohammed Taheri, and Hamid Ahmadi also scored during the match.

After the match, Iranian coach Ali Sane’i said, “It turned out exactly how we expected… We knew that Qatar would sit at the back and defend, (and) we had to attack smartly.

In its first match on Friday, the Iranian squad thrashed South Korea 14-1.

The 10-time Asian champions have already scored 22 goals and conceded only one in the tournament. Iran has won all but one of the previous 11 tournaments.

In the other Group C match, Australia destroyed South Korea 6-0 to ensure a place in the quarterfinals.

Iran and Australia will meet on Sunday to decide the Group C winner.

In other matches, in Group A, Thailand defeated Turkmenistan 5-1 and Kyrgyzstan beat host the United Arab Emirates 3-1; in Group B, Lebanon edged past Taiwan 3-2 and Japan pummeled Tajikistan 6-1; and in Group D, Kuwait beat Indonesia 9-3 and Uzbekistan downed China 2-1.