Iran begins Asian title defense with romp of Turkmenistan
Iran began its title defense at the 2018 AFC Women’s Futsal Championship with an emphatic 14-0 win over Turkmenistan in the Thai capital of Bangkok on Thursday.
As expected from the title holder, Iran showed its prowess from the first blow of the whistle with Fatemeh Etedadi finding the back of the net just seven seconds into the game, courtesy of Fereshteh Karimi’s pass into the box, the-afc.com reported.
Kamil Mingazov’s side showed moments of brilliance, pushing the Asian champion back into its half, but Iran eventually doubled its lead when Turkmenistan goalkeeper Malika Eminova blocked Fereshteh Khosravi’s shot but the ball fell right in front of Fahimeh Zarei for a simple finish, before scoring her second of the night moments after the restart.
Karimi etched her name on the scoresheet in the eighth minute, before Etedadi earned her second 12 minutes into the game from a set-piece, shooting into the top left goal.
Iran exploited and Fatemah Papi made it 6-0 in the 16th minute, while Karimi increased her personal tally to two goals within the same minute.
Iranians showed that they weren’t just deadly in their set-pieces, as every player had the ability to score from distance and Seyedeh nastaran Moqimidarz unleashed a crackling strike two minutes from the half-time whistle to give Iran an eight-goal lead going into the break.
Karimi completed her hat-trick three minutes into the restart, and Arezoo Sadaqianizadeh pushed the scoreline to 10 when she intercepted a pass forward and her left-footed strike gave no time for Eminova to react.
The tournament debutant, however, continued working hard in defense but Sara Shir-beigi scored again for Iran in the 32nd minute, after a quick onetwo between her and Papi in the final third.
Etedadi scored in the 35th and 38th minutes, before Zarei ended proceedings in the final minute of the game to power Iran to a 14-0 win.
Iran’s head coach Shahrzad Mozafar was full of praise for his players after the match, saying, “I am totally satisfied with the players’ performance. We wouldn’t have guessed that result before that but we believed in ourselves and we knew that we would win this game. I’m happy about the score and I’m totally satisfied with this as a first step.”
Mozafar’s Turkmen counterpart Kamil Mingazov also hailed the power of the Asian champion.
“Iran is the defending champion, and it’s really hard to play against them. Their quality is much higher than us and our team is quite young and has only been around for one or two years. We didn’t have international friendly games before this so it is quite hard, but hopefully in the next game we will improve,” Mingazov said after the game.