Qatar midfielder: 'Vietnam team plays with all their heart and passion'
Al Emadi admitted that Vietnam deserved to win the semi-final match of the U23 Asian Cup on January 23.
|
Qatar took the lead twice but in the end had to watch Vietnam win the ticket to the final.Photo: Anh Khoa |
"I think we started well and deserved to open the scoring. But then the Vietnamese team played with all their heart and passion. They equalised twice. This surprised us, even though we knew they had done the same thing before," Al Emadi shared after the match.
Qatar opened the scoring in the 39th minute thanks to a successful penalty kick by Akram Afif. But in the 69th minute, Quang Hai took advantage of the opponent's defender's indecisive clearance, and kicked the ball with his right foot close to the goal to equalize the score. With only three minutes left in regulation time, Qatar took the lead for the second time, but it only took two more minutes for Quang Hai to bring the match back to the starting line with a shot that curved the opponent's goalkeeper into the net.
In the 30 minutes of extra time, no more goals were scored, forcing the two teams to decide the winner by a penalty shootout. Quang Hai missed the first round, but Tien Dung saved two penalties from his opponent to help Vietnam win 4-3 and enter the final of the U23 Asian Cup.
Losing to Vietnam, Qatar will compete for third place. This is an opportunity for this team to pay back the debt to Korea in the semi-finals of the 2016 tournament, when they played at home.
“We will give our all in the third-place match and get a good result. The team will try to learn from the mistakes in the match against Vietnam,"Al Emadi emphasized. "We will continue to try to have a better future. Congratulations to Vietnam. We started well and scored the opening goal but were unlucky in this tournament."
