Tasnim - Iran drew 1-1 with defending champion Qatar in the AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 Group C encounter on Friday.

In the match held at the Bahrain National Stadium, Iran defender Reza Razzaghpour was left to rue his misfortune as he deflected an Abdullah Abdulsalam header into his own goal in the 38th minute, after it initially looked to be going wide.

Three minutes into second half, Iran’s Mohammad Soltanimehr was sent by Chinese referee Fu Ming after receiving his second yellow card due to bringing Abdelrahman Moustafa down just outside the box.

Razzaghpour turned from villain to hero after equalizing the match in the 58th minute.

“I pray before each game that if I make any mistake in the game, I should remain focused to help my team in all the ways possible,” he told the-AFC.com on his thoughts after the dreadful own goal.

The 2016 AFC U-19 Championship is the 39th edition of the AFC U-19 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-19 national teams of Asia.

Same as previous editions, the tournament acts as the AFC qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea as the AFC representatives, besides South Korea who qualified automatically as host. If South Korea is among the top four teams, the fifth-placed team will also qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.