Qatar aim to take early charge

By Suman Malla/Doha

Qatar’s Fabio Cesar attends a training session at the Aspire Academy in Doha yesterday

Qatar will be looking to score an early goal when they cross swords with regional rivals Kuwait in their crucial group game at the Asian Cup at the Khalifa Stadium today.
Qatar, who bounced back from a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Uzbekistan in their opening match to beat China by an identical score, are level on three points with China. 
A win against Kuwait today, with a draw or Chinese defeat to Uzbekistan in the other group match, will send Qatar through to the next round. Should that be the case, it will be Qatar’s second Asian Cup quarter-final appearance after 2000. Uzbekistan currently head the group on six points from two wins but many permutations can come into play.
Qatar coach Bruno Metsu insists there is no other option than going for a strong start. "If we want to win we must start with speed, be attack-minded,” said Mestu.
But he is also cautious about a possible Kuwaiti backlash, revealing that he had watched the recording of Kuwait’s last match 10 times. "As we are well aware Kuwait are a very dangerous opposition,” the Frenchman said. "But we need to take risks if we want to win.”
Today’s encounter will be the third between the two Gulf neighbours in the history of the AFC Asian Cup Finals, with Kuwait winning both the earlier matches, once in 1980 and the other in 1984."It will be a very tough match and we need to be ready mentally. Kuwait don’t want to finish at the bottom of the pile with nothing to show,” said Metsu.
But Qatar defender Hamid Ismail is not reading too much into the history. The team’s versatile player said the team had improved a lot after their disappointing loss to Uzbekistan.
"The first match forced us to wake up. There is no pressure on the team and we are more focused now,” said Ismail.Basking in the Gulf Cup glory only a couple of months ago, the Kuwait, 1980 Asian Cup champions, are in a precarious situation after losing the first two matches.
But they are not throwing in a towel yet, with coach Goran Tufegdzic vowing to go for an all-out assault.
Despite starting the match pointless, Kuwait, with a slice of luck, can still qualify if they win against Qatar with a favourable result – an Uzbek win over China – in the other match.
"We still have a chance to qualify and our motivation is up. We want to play good football and try to win our first three points of the tournament,” said Tufegdzic. He admitted that despite looking a strong side on paper, they have struggled to live up to the expectations. "We have played well in both the matches but failed to translate our chances into goals,” he said, attributing the problem to playing two important tournaments in the space of two months. "We will be trying to turn around all that and hope to score goals in this match. We will be playing for our reputation,” declared the Serbian coach.