Qatar throws group wide open with victory against China

DOHA - Yusef Ahmed was the two-goal hero for Qatar as their 2-0 victory Wednesday against China threw Group A at the Asian Cup wide open, with not even Uzbekistan assured of a place in the quarter-finals.

Uzbekistan, who beat Kuwait 2-1 in the early match Wednesday, leads the group on six points, while China and Qatar each have three and are equal on goal difference. Even Kuwait, who have yet to get a point, can still qualify for the knockout phase.

Ahmed, who was one of three new players coach Bruno Metsu brought in after the opening game defeat against Uzbekistan, scored twice in the first half.

Chinese coach Gao Hongbo also rang in the changes, bringing in four new players, including goalkeeper Zeng Cheng, who started in place of Yang Zhi.

Both sides started at a furious pace, with Qatar showing from early on that they were determined to stay in the competition.

The first chance fell to the Chinese though when Deng Zhuoxiang had a free header from a Rong Hao cross, but placed the ball straight into goalkeeper Oasem Burhan’s hands.

In the 10th minute, Uruguayan-born Sebastian Suria should really have opened the score after Zhao Peng tripped over the ball in the area and the Uruguayan-born striker had the goal at his mercy but pulled his shot wide.

Yusef Ahmed thrilled the 30,700-strong crowd in the 40,000-seat Khalifa stadium with a brilliant individualist goal in the 26th minute.

The striker, who is of Somali descent, stopped the ball with his thigh and then volleyed the ball into the top right-hand corner from well outside the area.

He then added a second in first-half injury time, after a long throw in was headed on and Ahmed turned around his marker and in falling managed to shoot the ball past Zeng.

In the second half, China tried gamely to get back into the match, but were denied by the Qatari defence.

In the earlier game in the Al-Gharafa stadium, Maksim Shatskikh and captain Server Djeparov scored for Uzbekistan, while Bader Al Mutwa temporarily equalized for Kuwait from the penalty spot.

“This was a tougher game than against Qatar and I am glad we managed to come out with three points,” Djeparov said.

“Now we are focused on making sure of winning the group and then anything can happen. We are not interested in the other teams, we just want to do as well as we can,” he added.

Uzbekistan took the lead five minutes from the break, when they were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the area.

Djeparov signaled that he wanted two men on the edge of the Kuwaiti wall. Shatskikh played his free-kick towards them and was lucky that the ball took a deflection off his own teammate Azizbek Haydarov, flat-footing goalkeeper Nawaf Al Khaldi.

Kuwait drew level just four minutes after the restart, when Al Mutwa scored from the spot after Hamad Nayef was brought down by Anzur Ismailov.

The equalizer saw the Uzbek team momentarily rattled as the Kuwaiti team pushed forward in search of more, with Al Enezi causing all sorts of problems for the Uzbek defence on the right.

But instead of the Middle Eastern country grabbing a second, it was Uzbekistan who restored their lead in the 64th minute, when Djeparov was found on the edge of the area by Jasur Khasanov’s cross for what turned out to be the game-winning volley.

Uzbekistan face China in their final group game, while Qatar take on Kuwait.