Doha

Iran’s U23 team defeated Qatar in the inaugural match of The Qatar 11th International Friendly Tournament which is held annually. A first half penalty by Payam Sadeghian was enough to award all the 3 points to Iran in a closely fought match played in the Grand Hamad Stadium of Al Arabi Sports Club.

The U23 team coached by Alireza Mansourian will be playing host Qatar, which drew 1-1 with Turkey,  in next match on Saturday.

The winning team will get $50,000, besides there are four different awards: Best Player Award, Best Goalkeeper Award, Best Team, and Top Scorer. Fans can enter the stadium for free as Qatar Football Association has decided not to charge fans for tickets, it was announced yesterday by a QFA official .

“We are expecting Iranian, the Moroccan and Turkish communities to come and support their Olympic squads,” he added.

Despite the free entrance, the match was played with only a handful of fans in the stadium with a marked absence by the ubiquitous Iranian fans due to the match being played on the Persian New Year,  Nowrooz.

The two teams started the match cautiously with both the goalkeepers having no real threat to deal with , however , The North Africans first real threat came with a free kick that shaved the top of the Iran goals and ended up safely out.

After the goal was scored by Sadeghian on the 29th minute , Morocco increased the pressure to score the equalizer but fail to capitalize on Iran’s retreat.

The second half was more about Iran keeping the ball and counter attacking. The Iranian defenders dealt quite well with all of the Moroccan attacks , which were shy in the first place, however , many chances were created by the superb performance of the Iranian midfield players , but no additional goal was scored.

 Commenting on the win, Iranian coach Alireza Mansourian said during a post-match press conference: “This match was one of the strongest matches in this tournament and Iran and Morocco are two of the strongest participating teams. Gaining these three points is a very positive start for the Iranian team and we are now preparing for the next matches against Qatar and Turkey.”

IRAN : Alireza  Piranvand ; Amin Hajmohammadi, Mohammad-Vahid Esmaeilbeigi , Mohammadreza Khanzadeh, Saeid Lotfi ,Milad  Gharibi, Bakhtiar Rahmani, Mohsen Mosalman , Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Shahab Karami, Payam Sadeghian

Yellow cards: Sadeghian , Khanzadeh