Road to Asian Cup 2015: setback for Iran against Kuwait [VIDEO]

Persianfootball.com – KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait stopped Iran’s successful campaign with a 1-1 draw in the Asian Cup 2015 qualifier in Kuwait City on Tuesday evening.

The Kuwaitis stormily pushed the Iranian players deep into their own half in the first 15 minutes of the game, but the hosts were not able to profit from an unstable Iranian defense at the beginning of an overall weak Asian Cup 2015 qualifier at the Kuwait S.C. stadium.

The Iranian Standard Liege’s striker Reza Ghoochannejhad (25) missed a great opportunity from close range after a nice Shojaei cross in the 23rd minute.

Masoud Shojaei (28) who played a satisfying first half, also missed the chance to open the scoring for the Iranians (28′, 31′).

Close before the halftime whistle, the Iranian national team slammed the hopes of the Kuwaiti national team to kill the clock until the half time break.

CA Osasuna’s Shojaei benefited from a terrible blunder of the Kuwaiti rearguard after a nice solo from FC Fulham’s Ashkan Dejagah (25) and a rebound shot from the post by Esteghlal’s Motjaba Jabbari. The La Liga legionnaire finally hammered the ball into the goal (44′).

Iran added a second goal just moments later when Dejagah’s header found Ghoochannejhad, who perfectly finished off, but the South Korean referee disallowed the goal due to an alledged foul play by Dejagah – unfortunately a wrong decision.

The second half turned into another fiasco for the Iranian national team. Iran centre-back Pejman Montazeri and the former Osasuna player and captain Javad Nekounam (32) were both fooled by the Kuwaiti striker who mainly outpaced Montazeri like a soccer rookie and was fouled in the box by Nekounam.

The Kuwaiti player had no problem to score the equalizer in the 75th minute against Saipa’s goalkeeper Rahman Ahmadi who surprisingly played instead of newly called up Eintracht Braunschweig goalkeeper Daniel Davari (25).

However, Montazeri could still have been the man of the match in the 82nd minute. His header from close range after a nice Dejagah corner kick and a Hajsafi back-heel missed the open goal.

Iran is still leading the Asian Cup qualifier group B by 4 points out of two games so far.

KUWAIT – IRAN 1-1 (0-1)

Asian Cup 2015 qualifier, Kuwait S.C. Stadium

Goal for Iran: Masoud Shojaei (44’/assist by Jabbari)

Bookings: Shojaei, Teymourian, Hajsafi

IRAN: Ahmadi – Heydari, Montazeri, Hosseini, Pouladi – Teymourian, Nekounam, Jabbari (65′ Oladi) – Dejagah, Ghoochannejhad (87′ Rafkhaei), Shojaei (65’Hajsafi)

Below come the highlights from PFDC TV.