AFC Futsal Club Championship: Nagoya Oceans and Mes Sungun ease into last eight

AFC – BANGKOK. Nagoya Oceans and defending champions Mes Sungun Varzeqan stormed into the knockout stage after securing victories in their Group D matches at the AFC Futsal Club Championship Thailand 2019 on Saturday.

Pepita’s brace was enough to lift Oceans past Kuwait’s Kazma SC and secure their second victory in a row.

The three-time champions are level on points with Mes Sungun, who lead the standings on goal difference after their 5-0 win over United Arab Emirates’ Al Dhafra and the two giants will clash on Monday to decide the group winners.

Oceans, who won the AFC Futsal Club Championship in 2011, 2014 and 2016, opened the scoring through Pepita and the Brazilian would go on to score a second in the second half.

“This is the most difficult group in the competition and the second victory is very important for us and now, we’ll prepare for our final match against Mes Sungun,” said Pepita.

Kazma head coach Tiago Sousa was pleased with his players despite losing their second match in the tournament.

“I’m happy with my players’ performance. It was a good game and good luck to Nagoya. We know we are out of the competition. We lost the match because Nagoya were the better side.”

Meanwhile, Madhi Javid revealed that his second half goal played a huge part in Mes Sungun’s goal rush against Al Dhafra.

“We are really happy to win this game, it was tough to score in the first half but luckily we scored two more goals at the beginning of the second period. We are happy with our attacking display and to qualify to the next stage.

“We were controlling the game and as I said it was difficult to score in the first half, but we scored back to back goals right after the break and that made us push for more goals.”

Mes Sungun head coach Esmaeil Taghipour admitted that Al Dhafra made it tough for them to score and needed a change in tactics to find a way through the UAE side.

“We planned to keep possession but it was not as effective as we thought it would be. Al Dhafra were very compact and that made it a little bit difficult for us to find a way through.

“It was a different case in the second half as we changed the way we approached the game and managed to get the goals.”