Belmadi slams Qatar after heavy defeat

AFC Asian Cup – CANBERRA, Qatar coach Djamel Belmadi slammed his side’s performance after their 4-1 defeat to the United Arab Emirates in the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015 Group C opener at Canberra Stadium on Sunday, with the Algerian saying he could take “no positives” from the defeat.

Former AFC Player of the Year Khalfan Ibrahim had given Belmadi’s side the opener on 22 minutes with a sublime chipped finish but Ahmed Khalil equalised before half-time and the forward added a second with a free kick to put the Emirates in front early in the second half.

With Qatar reeling, a subsequent brace from Khalil’s strike-partner Ali Mabkhout gave the Emirati side a comprehensive win over the Gulf Cup champions to put them in the driving seat in the group and leave Belmadi fuming.

“There were no positives to take from this game. They were better than us, showed more quality and more creativity,” said the Algerian.

“If we analyse goal by goal there were a lot of individual mistakes for their equaliser and in the second half it was two free-kicks for them that made the difference. After that it was really difficult to come back in the game against good opponents like the Emirates.

“I tried to help us come back into the game with some changes but we didn’t do enough and it was too late to equalise. Our players were focused and prepared for this game, so we cannot say our defeat was due to a lack of preparation or focus, we will have to search for the reason for this loss.”

Belmadi’s team will need to bounce back in their next group stage tie when they face Iran at Sydney’s Stadium Australia on Thursday and the Qatar coach is well aware of the difficulty of that upcoming fixture following the dispiriting loss in Canberra.

“I said on Saturday that our group is very strong and tough and all the teams are good. Now we have to face Iran who were in the last FIFA World Cup and are a strong team so it’s another big game. We are already under pressure because we lost the game today, so we have to make a massive game on Thursday,” said Belmadi.

“For most of the players it’s the first time they were participating in this competition, we had a lot of players playing their first international competition so of course it’s difficult. We will not give up even if it’s a really bad start, and it is really bad no doubt about that, but we will have a good reaction.”