The road to Russia is looking a little brighter for Qatar after its national football team beat Syria 1-0 yesterday.
The win followed three straight losses for Qatar, which is hoping to qualify to compete in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Speaking after the game, which was held at Al Sadd Stadium, new coach Jorge Fosatti said the team is in high spirits.
“We only had a short time to organize ourselves, but the players helped me and I’m proud of them. We now need to focus on the 90 minutes of the next game and not all the rest of the matches.
The win tonight will give us big motivation and I hope we can use this to our advantage in the next matches.”
What’s next
Competing in Russia is an important goal for Qatar, whose team has never qualified to play in the World Cup.
Team Qatar will automatically get a chance to participate in 2022 because the nation is hosting that tournament. But in recent history, no team has ever not earned its first chance to compete beforehand.
After last night’s win, Qatar has now moved from the very bottom of its group table to fifth place, ahead of China.
It travels to face China next month, while Syria will play group leader Iran next.
Thoughts?