Iran Beach soccer team defeated UAE in the semi-finals of the Beach Soccer Intercontinental Championships 2019 in a penalty shootout to qualify for the final match against Spain.

Yesterday, Iran Beach soccer team defeated the 3 times title holder Russia in penalty spot kicks after a 3-3 draw in regulation time. This is the second time in a row that Iran advances to the Intercontinental Cup final after winning the title in the last edition.

In the first period, the two teams played a low-risk game and created very few opportunities, one of those belonged to Mohammed Ali Mokhtari who had an open goal but his mild shot bounced off the sand and missing the goal by inches.  But two minutes later Iran’s goalkeeper Hamid Behzadpour opened the scoring with a low shot from his own goal. The second period of the match was again played on a low key attack, and despite the fact that the Iranian team created some good opportunities, the brilliant UAE goalkeeper Al Bahri saved the day for the host on many occasions.

The third period of the game both teams still played cautiously, but UAE managed to score the equalizer against the run of play. Two beautiful shots by Behzadpour were repelled by the Emirati goalkeeper and the game was eventually extended to 5 minutes extra time. During the overtime, the hosts objective was to defend and hope for a penalty shoot-out. Last-minute Behzadpour’s shot was again repelled by the UAE goalkeeper and the game went to penalty shootouts.

Kiani, Shir Mohammadi, Saeed Peramon, Mohammad Masoumizadeh scored Iran’s penalties while the hero was Iran Keeper Peyman Hosseini who made a great save to deny the hosts reaching the finals.

In the final of the Intercontinental Cup 2019, Iran and Spain will meet for the title.

It should be noted that Iran national beach soccer team competed with two players less than their opponent in this match. Amir Hossein Akbari and Captain Mohammad Ahmadzadeh were not able to accompany the coasters due to the injury which had a major impact on Iran’s game plan