24 Aug 2016
Doha, 24 August 2016: Qatar U-19 team opened their GCC Football Championship with a narrow loss to United Arab Emirates as the tournament kicked off at the Aspire Dome on Wednesday afternoon. The Qatar team counts 23 of its squad 24 players among current or former student-athletes of Aspire Academy. Qatar team manager Oscar Cano believes his charges have just had a bleep but are still very much alive in the championship, “Of course you want to start a championship like GCC with a more positive result and we made too many mistakes that proved costly in the end. We however have to put this into perspective that, we have lost one battle and it doesn’t mean we have lost the war. There is lots of football still to play in this GCC Championship and we will regroup do better for the next games”
There wasn’t much to separate the two sides during the game and both sets of players seem to have fallen victim to the “first match of the tournament” nerves. The match hardly settled into a pattern and style each side is capable of and it wasn’t surprising that the only goal of match came from a blunder when Emirate striker, Faisal Ahmed AL- Matrooshi pounced on hesitance in the Qatari defence to score after 77 minutes. Qatar went in search of an equaliser, coming close on a few occasions, the best of which was a header that sailed wide of the upright deep in injury time from substitute, Ibrahim Saleh AL-Karbbi’s header.
Emirate team manager, Jakub Dovalil concurred with his opposite number that both sides had perhaps not played their best football on the day, “Two good sides battled it out today and there wasn’t much difference between them apart from mistakes and we scored from one of their mistakes. It is good to start a championship with a win and we hope to play better from here on because l thought we started of very nervous and although we improved , we can play better than that” said the Czech Republic born manager.
The biannual GCC U-19 Championship runs from 24th August to 2nd September and this year serves as a dress rehearsal and preparation opportunity for the upcoming AFC U19 Championship that is going to take place in Bahrain in October. Apart from hosts Qatari the other participating teams are United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Qatar’s next match is on Friday 26th against Oman.
Fixtures
2016 GCC U19 Football Championship, Aspire Dome:
Wednesday, 24/8/2016: Qatar vs UAE (4pm)
Wednesday, 24/8/2016: Bahrain vs Oman (6:40pm)
Friday, 26/8/2016: UAE vs Saudi Arabia (4pm)
Friday, 26/8/2016: Oman vs Qatar (6:40pm)
Monday, 29/8/2016: Qatar vs Bahrain (4pm)
Monday, 29/8/2016: Saudi Arabia vs Oman (6:40pm)
Wednesday, 31/8/2016: Oman vs UAE (4pm)
Wednesday, 31/8/2016: Bahrain vs Saudi Arabia (6:40pm)
Friday, 2/9/2016: UAE vs Bahrain (4pm)
Friday, 2/9/2016: Saudi Arabia vs Qatar (6:40pm)