AFC - Iran announced that they are still a team to beat as the continental giants thrashed Korea Republic with an emphatic 14-1 victory in their first outing of the 2012 AFC Futsal Championship on Friday.

In one of the mesmerizing displays of the 10-time continental champions, two hattircks were scored in the match with other two players getting a brace each. Ali Asghar Hassan Zadeh and Javid Mahdi were the ones scoring hattricks.

Debutant Seo Daeyun scored a consolation goal for Korea Republic who have mountain to climb after a discouraging first match defeat to book a place to the quarterfinal and keep alive the dream of playing in the FIFA Futal World Cup later this year in Thailand.

Mahdi, playing his maiden AFC Futsal Championship, scored his first in 15th minute before adding two more goals in the 17th and 27th minute. Ali Asghar, who plays his club football for Qatar’s Al Rayyan, scored his goals in the 12th, 13th, and 27th minute.

Shahid Mansouri duo of Mohammed Keshavarz and Javad Asgharimoghaddam recorded brace and there were goal each for Mohammed Taheri, Esmailpour Ahmed and Hossein Tayebi.

The only black spot on Iran’s win was star player Vahid Shamsaee’s failure to score a goal despite being given reasonable amount of time by the coach Sanei Arani Ali.

“Vahid is so popular in futsal world that he is always marked tightly but we used this as our strategy as other three players get space enough to run and score,” Ali said.

“We started the tournament with a bang but we keep on improving and respecting our opponents to achieve our goal,” he added.

Ali’s Korean counterpart was devastated by the way his team played.

“Our players were all over the place today, before the match I have not thought about this margin loss. But what’s gone is gone and tomorrow, we need to be prepared mentally and physically well to take on Australia,” Korea coach Lee Chang-hwan said.

“It is very difficult to overpower from this disastrous loss by we don’t have any option than to be optimistic and hope that we fix it out from tomorrow,” the visibly dejected coach said.