Qatar’s Ahmed Mohamed al-Sayed celebrates after scoring the lone goal of the 2018 World Cup qualifier match against Maldives at Rasmee Dhandu (Galolhu) National Stadium in Male, Maldives, yesterday. PICTURE: Fadi al-Assaad

By Sports Reporter/Doha

Qatar scraped past Maldives 1-0 with a late, deflected goal yesterday to register their first win in their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign. Ahmed Mohamed al-Sayed scored in the 99th minute in the Group C encounter to give recently-appointed Jose Daniel Carreno his first win as Qatar’s national coach.
The match played at the Rasmee Dhandu (Galolhu) National Stadium in Male, Maldives, was a one-sided affair with Qatar dominating proceedings right from the start. But the visitors, playing without their main striker Khalfan Ibrahim, were wasteful in front of the goal and should have wrapped up this win earlier.
Such was the one-sided nature of the match that Qatar goalkeeper Claude Amin was called into action barely a couple of times during the entire match.
Qatar were the favourites going into this match and that’s how the match started. While Qatar were able to keep the ball and enjoy a lion’s share of the possession, they couldn’t find the back of the net. Maldives tried to attack on the counter but clearly lacked the skill to trouble the Qatari defence. But what they lacked in offence, the home side made up for in their defence. The Maldives side played majority of the match in their own half, looking to nullify the attacking moves of the Qataris. The first half ended with Qatar being frustrated by the defensive approach of the home side.
The second half too followed a similar script. Qatar would build a move that would take them to their final one-thirds of the pitch but then they would be thwarted by the Maldives defence or their goalkeeper Imran Mohamed who pulled off many saves to keep his side in the match.
Qatar had many clear chances but they started getting more threatening as the second half progressed. In the 72nd minute Hassan al-Haydos sent in a great cross into the centre which fell to unmarked Abdelkarim Hassan inside the box. But Hassan slipped when taking the shot and that chance was wasted.
The next big chance came in the 85th minute when Moayad Hassan who came on as a substitute in the 60th minute. Hassan, after getting a great long ball from the half-line, had just the keeper to beat but his shot was straight at Mohamed who charged in.
In the 89th minute, al-Haydos fired in a shot from the edge of the box but again the keeper was able to collect easily.
With time running out and the Maldives side falling to the ground at the slightest of pushes to waste time, it looked like Qatar would end up with a draw. But then because of the various injury interruptions, the referee gave eight minutes of added time. This gave Qatar some hope that they could still get a result out of this game. In the 96th minute, Mohamed Muntari fired in a curler from the edge of the box but keeper Mohamed pulled off a one-handed save to deny the Qatari.
Then came the decisive moment of match. It was the 99th minute and the Maldives coach Velizar Popov was seen frantically pointing to his watch asking for the game to be stopped. But Hassan sent in a cross into the box which Karim Boudiaf laid into the path of al-Sayed, who fired in the shot which went in after deflecting off the legs of Maldives defender Akram Ghani. Maldives goalkeeper Mohamed had positioned himself correctly for the shot but the deflection took the ball away from him.
Qatar have three points in the bag after this last-gasp victory but they will need to sharpen their attacking prowess if they want to progress further.
Other Asian Qualifiers Results
Guam 1 Turkmenistan 0
Kyrgyzstan 3 Bangladesh 1
Singapore 4 Cambodia 0
Laos 2 Myanmar 2
Hong Kong 7 Bhutan 0
Philippines 2 Bahrain 1
Malaysia 1 Timor-Leste 1
Oman 2 India 1
Kuwait 1 Lebanon 0
Jordan 3 Tajikistan 1
Syria 6 Afghanistan 0
DPR Korea 1 Yemen 0