AFC U-16 Women’s C’ship: Iran 2-0 Guam

AFC – NANJING, Iran made a winning start to their AFC U-16 Women’s Championship campaign on Saturday when they defeated Guam 2-0 at Jiangning Sports Centre.

While it was Iran’s first outing in China the girls from Guam were playing their second Group D fixture and they should considerably more resilience than they did in their tournament curtain raiser on Thursday when they went down 19-0 to Japan.

The Iranians dominated the first half but couldn’t find their way past Guam goalkeeper Mya Sanchez until two minutes into first-half stoppage-time through Shabnam Behesht (pictured) before the match MVP was beaten for only the second and final time ten minutes after the interval when Fatemeh Geraeli found the net for Iran.

“We had many chances to score in the first half but we just couldn’t convert them so it turned out to be a difficult game,” said Iran head coach Amirshaghaghi Mahanaz.

“We managed to score at the end of the first half and my players played the way I wanted but as we are a new team we are still inexperienced and have a lot to learn.

“Playing Japan will be very difficult but this is a good chance for us to play such a high level team.”

Guam have first-hand experience of just how difficult playing against Japan can be and it was to their credit that they weren’t too demoralised after the double-digit defeat to the defending champions, putting in a more assured performance against Iran.

“We planned to play more defensively in the first half and hope not to concede a goal but they scored in stoppage-time,” reflected Guam coach Brett Maluwelmeng.

“In the second half we played more offensively and had a couple of chances that we couldn’t convert,” continued the 28-year-old, who represented Guam in the 2006 and 2008 AFC Challenge Cups as well as the qualifiers for the 2007 AFC Futsal Championship.

“We actually had a very good chance in the first half and had we scored that there might have been a different outcome but Iran were the better team and I wish them good luck for the rest of the tournament.”