Doha – Katara village.
Iran’s Beach football team won its first ever Asian title by beating the defending champions Japan. The thrilling and eventful match ended 6-6 in regulation time , with the added 3 minutes extra time failing to find a winning goal.
In the penalty kicks, the sudden death , Iran scored all 5 goals while Japan’s fifth kick was saved by Peyman Hosseini , Iran’s brilliant goalkeeper.
With both teams already qualified for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti next September , the match was expected to be an open affair and entertaining. The two teams did not disappoint the full capacity arena and from the word go , the excitement started,
Japan started the match in a spectacular style when Ouzo , the Brazilian born Japanese center half scored right from the kick off with a ferocious shot that flew in to the upper left corner of Peyman Hosseini goal. The Iranian keeper, despite his remarkable attempt with a jump to his right, could not prevent this unstoppable ball.
The Match clock has passed 2 seconds only at the time.
This quick and sudden goal , seriously disturbed the Iranian players and soon they lost their concentration, however Iran managed to equalized through Ahmadzadeh resulting in some calm amongst the their player . But no soon after that equalizer Japan scored two quick goals by Ouzo make it 4-1 for the Japanese
Iran games was marred by rough play and loss of discipline which resulted in many free kicks 3 of which resulted in goals for Japan.
Despite the Iran’s Brazilian coach request for calm , the Iranian players continued commuting fouls with their over zealous tackles and then pleading innocence, and that cost them heavily.
Whenever Iran players played calmly and remained focused on the games, they threatened the Japanese goal with their individual skills and quick moves.
Iran then scored two goals by Mehran Morshedizadeh from a nicely chipped free kick before the team’s top scorer Moslim Meisigar scored Iran’s third with a deflected ball. It was 4-3 for Japan and the game was certainly on. However, the tense Iranian players continued making the same mistakes and committing fouls for Japan to score two more to make it 6-3.
Iran scored by Mohammad Ali Mokhtari wrong footed the Japanese goalkeeper to score from a penalty with 6 minutes to go to make it 6-4.
Barely a minute passed when Akbari , Iran;s youngest pkayer found the net to score Iran’s 5th. The Japanses , who felt quite secure with the tthree goal margin , suddenly found themselves threatend and now it was their turn to lose focus and concentration
In dramatic fashion with only 35 seconds to to go , Iran’s Moslim Meisigar the tournament top scorer , scored the equalizer with a bouncing ball off the sand . The ecstatic Iranian fans in Katara roared in delight with Meisigar running to the bench to celebrate with the coach. The whistle blew for the end of regulation time with the result 6-6 and extrea time.
The 3 extra minutes did not yield any results and the two teams went into penalty shoot-out Iran scorers where ;Morshedizadeh , Ali Naderi , Mokhtari , Ahmadzadeh and Moslem Meisigar.
Iran;s keeper Peyman Hosseini saved Japan’s 5th penalty kicj to declare Iran as champions of Asian Beach soccer, Although this is Iran’s first title in this particular competition . Team Melli is current;y the holder of the titke for the beach games.