Tajikistan national team coach Peter Siegart confirmed that his team still have a chance to qualify for the round of 16 after losing to the Qatari counterpart Wednesday in the second round of Group A.
Speaking at a press conference following the match, Siegart congratulated the Qatari squad for the early qualification for the round of 16, adding that Tajikistan performed greatly and were doing best in the first minutes, but did not invest in offered chances finding themselves late before 18 minutes of scoring the first goal.
The match referee should have leveraged the video assistant referee (VAR) before calculating the sole goal, since the referee himself was interfering in this game, Siegart emphasized, stressing that the law imposes ending the match accordingly.
Siegart added that his players were greatly determined to clear the backlog in the second round and were massively pressuring the Qatari team, but failed, indicating that expelling one of his players in the 80th minute did not prevent them from looking for a draw in the last minutes.
