Afghanistan Closer to Qualification

In a much improved match, Afghanistan registered an identical 1-0 victory over Mongolia to collect 6 points after its victory in the opening against Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is now leading the group and a tie between Sri Lanka and Laos later in the day would send Afghanistan through the final stage of the tournament.

Kargar made only two changes to the team he used against Sri Lanka. Yusef Mashriqi and Amruddin Sharifi were out for Haress Habib and Sandjar Ahmadi to begin in the first 11. Afghanistan began the match on a bright note and missed a number of chances in the first half. Balal Arezou missed a sitter and Sandjar Ahmadi did the same minutes later. Afghanistan continued to put pressure on the opponent by passing long high balls and Balal scored on an assist from Sandjar in minute 66. That was the only goal as Afghanistan could not convert its chances to goals on many occasions.

While Afghanistan completely dominated the match, Mongolia created some useless chances at the dying minutes of the match. At the end, Kargar boys were the happier. The surprise was when everyone thought Kargar will make some changes, but he refused to do so until the last 15 minutes when he used Yusef Mashriqi, Wahid Nadim and Munirulhaq Nadim as substitutes for Arash Hatifi, Salim Kohistani and Sandjar Ahmadi. 

Laos will meet Sri Lanka later in the day. Afghanistan's last match is against Laos on Wednesday evening.