Odil Akhmedov scored from a 30 yard belter to give the Uzbekis the lead. The goal was reminiscent of Siphiwe Tshabalala’s scorcher for SA against Mexico in the World Cup’s opening game. Server Djeparov intercepted a pass and added to the tally as the Qataris defense went to sleep.
The lesson learned by Qatar’s royal family will be to increase pay and naturalize foreign born talent more quickly.
2 comments on “Qatar loses to Uzbekistan in Asian Cup opener”
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I am not a big fan of giving the passport to a foreign player to play in national team. but unfortunately, this became the norms of today.
US did it a lot in the past (i remember nigerian player plaed in 1992 confederation cup just after one week of getting the passport)
japan did it a lot, belgium, portugal, tunisia and many other nations.
we should not blame a country with 350,000 locals.
apart from this issue,
i expect qatar to bring the game from amateur level in that area to a professional level
this region is behind in football not because of lack of skills, or love of football, but because lack of professionalism
today, the only decent big sport academy in both Afro-Asian continents (if we exclude japan, korea and china) is lying in qatar. we will see the first impact in five years time.
Mohammad Bin Hammam, the head of Asian Football Federation is a big contravorsial issue, and has the biggest influence in winning WC 2022.
Many other countries in the region don’t like him as he stand against the traditional unprofessional way of playing the game, and don’t go with the flow of PR compliments (royal families treats …etc).
He has big influence in setting up the first Asian Champion League in a professional way. He puts a lot of pressures on other associations to bring their soccer facilities to another level to accept them in this competition as a “professinal league”
for the first time, asian soccer federation started to behave with some professionalism.
Hammam is the best figure in adminstrative field in Asian football in many years.
n. waleed,
Passionately stated. I like the points you make. Yes, this is not new but in Qatar’s case it is more dire. And Mohammad Bin Hammam maybe the next FIFA chief after Blatter – he’s that powerful.