Australia 2015 Qualifiers MD5: Group B Preview

AFC – BEIRUT, Iran coach Carlos Quieroz has insisted that his side will not be motivated by thoughts of revenge when they face Lebanon at the Sports City Stadium on Tuesday, needing only a draw to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup for a 13th consecutive time.

Quieroz suffered one of the most stunning reversals during his time in charge of Team Melli when they lost 1-0 in Beirut 14 months ago during the final round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

Despite the defeat, Iran went on to qualify for the World Cup. And following back-to-back wins against Thailand, they also find themselves within touching distance of the 2015 Asian Cup finals in Australia.

“The two teams are looking to qualifying for the Asian Cup and our 3-0 win in Thailand last week will give us great motivation to put in another great performance,” said the Portuguese, who will be missing midfielder Ehsan Haji Safi through suspension.

“The match is important but it’s not about revenge as this is not good for football. We previously lost in Beirut because we made mistakes and there were other factors that affected us as we were also missing some key players.

“However, we are now ready to have a good match. We have worked things out and we will try our best to give a strong performance and win the match in order to qualify for the finals.”

Lebanon are third in Group B, one point adrift of second-placed Kuwait, and need to beat Iran to keep alive their hopes of finishing in the top two and advancing to the Asian Cup for the first time since they hosted the tournament in 2000.

“We are confident that the players will give their best and delight the fans with a good performance that will give us three important points in order to strengthen our chances of qualifying for the Asian Cup,” said coach Giuseppe Giannini.

“We always look to win matches and hopefully we can do so against Iran. We are doing our job perfectly and we should keep trying to score throughout the 90 minutes in order to get the points from the match.”

A loss for the Lebanese could see Kuwait seal their spot in the Asian Cup for a 10th time if they beat last-placed Thailand at the Kuwait SC Stadium on Tuesday.

However, Al Azraq will be missing forward Bader Al Mutwa and midfielder Amer Al Fadhe through injury and coach Jorvan Vieira is not expecting an easy outing against a Thai team who have yet to manage a point in Group B.

“We have no other option but to win our remaining matches in order to secure our place in the finals without looking into the results of other teams,” said the Brazilian.

“The match is going to be very hard despite the fact that our opponents haven’t got any points so far. Thailand are a good side and they played well against Iran when they lost 2-1 in Tehran. However, we have prepared well and all the players are concentrating in order to get a positive result.”

While his team have little hope of qualifying, Thailand coach Surachai Jatturapattarapong insisted that they will still be battling for results in their final two games.

“We are going into the last two matches with an aim to beat both Kuwait and Lebanon in order to maintain the good reputation of Thai football,” he said.

“We will be playing with high motivation as we want to show the good level of Thai football. Hopefully we can get positive results against Kuwait on Tuesday or in our last match against Lebanon.”