{"id":56306,"date":"2024-02-04T20:23:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T20:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/shootout-luck-sends-qatar-into-asian-cup-semi-final-with-iran-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-02-04T20:23:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T20:23:08","slug":"shootout-luck-sends-qatar-into-asian-cup-semi-final-with-iran-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/shootout-luck-sends-qatar-into-asian-cup-semi-final-with-iran-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Shootout ‘luck’ sends Qatar into Asian Cup semi-final with Iran | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nDOHA:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Qatar<\/a>‘s shootout hero Meshaal Barsham credited “anticipation and luck” as the hosts and holders moved into an Asian Cup semi-final against Iran after beating Uzbekistan on penalties on Saturday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goalkeeper Barsham saved three times in the shootout as Qatar won 3-2 after a 1-1 draw at the end of extra time in their quarter-final.<\/p>\n

Pedro Miguel dispatched their final penalty to spark wild celebrations in front of almost 60,000 fans at the tent-like Al-Bayt Stadium north of Doha.<\/p>\n

The triumphant Qatar players tossed Barsham in the air at the end but the goalkeeper said fortune was on his side.<\/p>\n

“With penalties there is some anticipation and there is some luck,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Thankfully I got lucky and saved three penalties.”<\/p>\n

Qatar’s opponents in the semi-final will be Iran,<\/a> who beat pre-tournament favourites Japan<\/a> 2-1 in the day’s earlier quarter-final.<\/p>\n

Qatar also missed twice in the shootout, with Almoez Ali seeing his kick saved and Almahdi Ali blazing horribly over.<\/p>\n

But Barsham made it look easy, especially in holding his ground in the middle of the goal to stop Uzbekistan’s fifth spot kick from Jaloliddin Masharipov.<\/p>\n

“I’ve played against him before with my club so I expected him to shoot down the middle,” said Barsham.<\/p>\n

Qatar had won their four previous games at the tournament but they were given a stiffer test by Uzbekistan, who some had tipped as dark horses to lift the trophy.<\/p>\n

Qatar opened the scoring midway through the first half when captain Hassan Al-Haydos forced an own goal from goalkeeper Utkir Yusupov.<\/p>\n

Uzbekistan levelled just before the hour when Odiljon Hamrobekov broke free of the Qatar defence and drilled a shot into the corner of the net.<\/p>\n

Qatar won the Asian Cup for the first time in 2019 and went into the game on a run of 11 straight wins in the competition.<\/p>\n

Coach Tintin Marquez, who took over from Carlos Queiroz only a month before the tournament began, said they had “not accomplished anything yet” as they prepare to face Iran on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“Of course it is a very big match that awaits us but first we need to recover because the game went into extra time,” said the Spaniard.<\/p>\n

“First we will enjoy what happened today and then we will start preparing for the next game.”<\/p>\n

Uzbekistan were looking to reach the Asian Cup semi-finals for the second time in their history.<\/p>\n

They did not quite manage it and while coach Srecko Katanec was proud of his team, he said they “should have scored before so that we didn’t go to penalties”.<\/p>\n

“Penalties are always tricky, especially mentally,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They should benefit from this (long term) but we’re out. This is football and we have to accept it. They have to be proud.”<\/p>\n

Masharipov’s weak kick down the middle was one of several poor penalties by Uzbekistan, but Katanec refused to blame his players.<\/p>\n

“They were tired and mentally exhausted, that’s it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We can’t do it in training because there are not 50,000 people there and we are not tired.”<\/p>\n

Qatar started strongly and broke the deadlock in the 27th minute when Haydos wriggled clear in the box and hit a shot from a tight angle that Yusupov fumbled into his own net.<\/p>\n

Uzbekistan equalised in the 59th minute when Hamrobekov latched onto a loose ball and surged into the box before hitting his shot across Barsham and in.<\/p>\n

Both teams had chances to snatch a winner in second-half injury time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOHA: Qatar‘s shootout hero Meshaal Barsham credited “anticipation and luck” as the hosts and holders moved into an Asian Cup semi-final against Iran after beating Uzbekistan on penalties on Saturday. Goalkeeper Barsham saved three times in the shootout as Qatar won 3-2 after a 1-1 draw at the end of extra time in their quarter-final. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/Qatar-goalkeeper-Meshaal-Barsham1707048718-0\/Qatar-goalkeeper-Meshaal-Barsham1707048718-0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}