AFC - Arsalan Motahhari scored one and set up the other as Iran kicked off their AFC U23 Championship Group A campaign on Tuesday evening with a 2-0 win over Syria at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium.
Motahhari claimed a fine solo effort in the 64th minute before setting up the impressive Mehrdad Mohammadi for the second eight minutes later as Mohammad Khakpour’s side made the perfect start to their attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“These young men are the future of football in our country – and hopefully in Asia – but they’re young and they were stressed because this was the first game of the tournament and they didn’t perform well,” said Khakpour of his team’s first half performance.
“In the second half I asked them to just enjoy the game in the second half and I guess they did.
“I believe the game is 90 minutes long and we never give up. We had studied Syria pretty well and we knew who are their key players, but it was just that our players were a little stressed in the first half.
“But in the second half we controlled the game and the players enjoyed the game and that’s why we won.”
Iran have not appeared at the Olympic Games since 1976, but Khakpour’s side sent out a message of intent with an efficient performance that saw the Iranians on top for much of the 90 minutes.
Ali Karimi and Farshid Esmaeili caused concern for the Syrian defence in the opening 20 minutes, with Karimi forcing Syrian goalkeeper Abdullatif Nassan into action thanks to a well-taken free kick while Esmaeili sent his close-range effort over the bar.
The teams went into the break level, but it was the Iranians who were in the ascendancy and, by the 64th minute, Khakpour’s had taken the lead.
Six minutes earlier, Mahdi Torabi should have scored when Nassan fumbled Karimi’s low cross at his feet, only for the ball to eventually go wide of the goalkeeper’s left post.
But Motahhari finally broke the deadlock when, picking the ball up inside the left side of the Syrian penalty area he skipped past two defenders and sent a low left foot shot across Nassan and into the far corner.
In the 70th minute, Iranian goalkeeper Mohammadreza Akhbari’s sharp reactions saw him push Omar Kharbin’s perfectly struck shot over the bar and, just two minutes later the result was put beyond any doubt.
Motahhari was the architect of the goal on this occasion as he stormed down the right flank before cutting the ball inside to Mohammadi, whose first touch took him away from the defence before hitting his right foot effort into the far corner.
“I know and I believe this is one of the worst games we have played in the last year,” said Syrian coach Muhanad Al Fakeer.
“I don’t know exactly why, but maybe some of our players came very late here to Doha, so they didn’t make good training with all the players together. I think this is one of the reasons, but even if this is one reason also our players they didn’t appear to us as good players, individually the players weren’t good.
“We made many mistakes, we had many problems, we have to find the solution in the next two matches.”
NEXT MATCHES:
January 15: China v Syria
January 15: Iran v Qatar