AFC - Iran took the early initiative in Group C of the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship qualifiers as the Group C hosts ran out comfortable 5-0 winners over Nepal in Monday’s later match at the PAS Stadium following Palestine’s 2-0 defeat of Afghanistan.

Arsalan Motahhari, who came off the bench to score in Naft Tehran’s 2-1 come-from-behind win over Al Shabab in last week’s AFC Champions League, put the home side one up after 14 minutes before a 27th minute penalty from skipper Behnam Barzay gave Iran a 2-0 lead to take into the interval at the PAS Stadium.

Sardar Azmoun, scorer of two goals for the senior side at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, made it 3-0 ten minutes into the second half and after Ali Karimi added to the Russia-based winger’s strike with Iran’s fourth in the 67th minute, Shahin Saghebi rounded off the victory three minutes from full time, with the substitute getting his name on the score sheet ten minutes after coming on to replace captain Barzay.

Iran are not in action again until Friday when they take on Palestine who will be looking to go into the meeting with the Group C hosts having recorded their second win of the campaign when they face Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

Ten group winners and five best second-placed teams from all groups will join hosts Qatar at the AFC U-23 Championship 2016, with January’s 16-team competition also serving as Asia’s qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in Rio.