Agencies/Beirut Sebastian Soria made the most of a horrible defensive blunder as Qatar beat Lebanon 1-0 in their World Cup final phase Asian qualifying match at the Sports City Stadium here yesterday. The Uruguay-born hitman easily intercepted an inexplicable back passby Lebanon defender Ramez Dayoub to fire Qatar into the lead in the 64th minute and give Paulo Autuori’s side three valuable points in their Group A fixture in the Lebanese capital. Dayoub had acres of space to work the ball, but instead tried to pass it to goalkeeper Ziad al-Samad from outside the penalty area only for Soria to race ahead and find the net with ease. Al-Samad, who was caught by surprise at Dayoub’s move, until then had produced a stirring display to deny Qatar at least two clear goals in the first half, including one off a powerful shot by Soria. Qatar produced more scoring opportunities but a mixture of poor finishing and goalkeeper al-Samad’s heroics prevented them from winning the match by a bigger margin. As early as in the sixth minute Soria was a tad late in reaching the ball, which al-Samad cleared from well inside the penalty area. Lebanon, who were without their inspirational captain Rada Antar and striker Mahmoud El Ali, however had their chances. They had a golden opportunity to score in the 25th minute when the Qatar defence was caught napping but Abbas Ahmed Atwi’s shot from 20 yards hit the post and Hassan Maatouk, who was lurking nearby, failed to capitalise on the rebound.
The Qatari goal survived another scare when Mohamed Ghaddar’s header sailed over the post early in the second half. A decent crowd watched the match after Lebanese authorities reversed an earlier decision to bar spectators over Qatari fears their players may be targeted for the country’s opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Meanwhile, Asian champions Japan cruised to a 3-0 win over Oman as Uzbekistan were left to rue an apparent goal which was unseen by officials—underlining the growing case for goal-line technology. Strikes by CSKA Moscow star Keisuke Honda, Ryoichi Maeda and Shinji Okazaki meant Japan were never troubled by lowly Oman as they made a winning start to the final round of Asian qualifying for Brazil 2014. But there was drama in Tashkent as Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura missed what seemed a clear-cut goal for Uzbekistan, who then watched in disbelief as visitors Iran snatched a 1-0 win in the dying seconds. Half-an-hour into the second half, Odil Ahmedov’s close-range shot from a goal-mouth melee crossed the line before being blocked by Iranian defender Seyed Hosseini, who also may have used his hand, TV replays indicated. But the incident went unnoticed by Nishimura and his assistants. The latest in a long line of similar cases comes after world body FIFA tested goal-line technology at England’s friendly against Belgium on Saturday. And the match finished cruelly for Uzbekistan, who have never reached a World Cup finals, when Iran’s Mohamed Khalatbari raced onto a through ball in the 94th minute and scored the winner in virtually the last kick of the game. There were no such problems for Japan, who didn’t look back after influential midfielder Honda, back in the international fold after injury, scored the opener on 12 minutes. Two-time J-League top-scorer Maeda scored via the left upright in the 51st minute, and he had another shot blocked three minutes later only for Stuttgart forward Okazaki to collect the rebound and make it 3-0. “We were a bit tense at the beginning, but I wanted to win. I’m glad that we won,” said Honda. Japan dominated throughout the 90 minutes, with Oman limited to a single shot on target through midfielder Fawzi Doorbeen at the end of the first half, and never able to create another clear scoring chance. A total of 10 Asian countries are split into two groups of five for the continent’s fourth qualifying round, with the group winners and runners-up earning places in Brazil, and the third-placed teams going into play-offs.