Iran U 16 team qualified to the next round of the AFC Asian U 16 Championship Thailand 2014 after defeating Saudi Arabia 2-1 today. The Saudi team went ahead late in the first half , when a clumsy pass by a defender was intercepted resulting in a counter attack and a fine header by midfielder Mashour Abdulla past Iran's Keeper Farid Nejatpashaki to make it 1-0 for KSA. In the second half , Iran were slowly losing the control of the match with the Saudi's defending strongly and also threatening on the counter attack. As the confidence of the Arab team was on the rise, Iran struck with a fine header by the substitute Mohammad Shamsi who headed powerfully from a brilliant cross by Reza Karimi from the right. The frustrating Karimi , whose work thus far  was marred by eccentricity and selfish play , managed to dribble his way past several marker before crossing in the box , met by the rising Shamsi to score the equalizer. One minute later,  the Saudi's were stunned when Reza Karimi , this time turned from provider of assist to a scorer, when he chested a loose ball  into the empty net after some shoddy defending by the Saudi team and the goalkeeper. The rest of the match had much more efforts by the Saudi team who were desperate to score at least an equalizer to keep their chances of qualifying alive, but it was not to be as the Iranian boys defending quite well , although at times quite nervously and chaotically. Iran joins Australia, Japan, and South Korea all on 6 points after 2 matches as the qualifiers to the next round of the championship.

Saudi  Arabia U16 vs.  Iran U16

1    -   2

AFC U16 Championship Thailand 2014

Rajamangala Stadium, Bangkok, THAILAND

9- September - 2014

Man of the Match :   Reza Karimi

  Scorers : MASHHOUR ABDULLAH M ABDULLAH (KSA) 41’,      MOHAMMAD SHAMSI (IRN) 64',  REZA KARIMI (IRN) 65' Line Up Iran 1 Farid Nejatpashaki; 2 Mahdi Abdollahvand , 4 Alireza Aghabarari Darzinaghibi, 5 Mehrdad Pour Abolghasem , 21 Mehran Derakhshanmehr, 7 Vahid Aftari (C) [17 Mohammad Shamsi 52'], 8 Reza Shekari [11 Ali Khodadadi 90+3'] , 9 Reza Karimi , 10 Nima Mokhtari [20 Bagher Shamasbi 62'], 14 Hesam Soltanpour, 15 Reza Dehghani   Caution : Nima Mokhtari (IRN) 62'